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THE DATE OF CYLON 



A STUDY IN EARLY ATHENIAN HISTORY 



BY 



JOHN HENRY WRIGHT 



Reprinted from the Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 
Vol. hi, 1892 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN AND COMPANY 

1802 



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"NT 



THE DATE OF CYLON. 

By John Henry Wright. 

" Si in tanlis tcmporum difficultatibus definire quidquam licet." — Boeckh. 

I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

THE fifty years preceding the legislation of Solon witnessed most 
significant changes in the political, social, and economic condi- 
tions of Athens, and in the relations of that little state to the world 
without. The main features of these changes were, as regards 
internal development, first, the dawning of popular political con- 
sciousness — the birth, from the throes of economic distress, of 
Democracy, — and, secondly, an increased intensity of factional feel- 
ing among the several families of the ruling Aristocracy; and, as 
regards both domestic and foreign relations, we have to note the de- 
velopment of local industries and of foreign trade, i.e. the beginnings 
of the commercial enterprise which subsequently aided in giving 
Athens her poHtical supremacy among the Greek states. 

The dates of a few events in these and in earlier important move- 
ments have been preserved to us. If we are to place any confi- 

NOTE. — This paper was originally prepared in 1888 and was read before the 
American Philological Association at the meeting of that year (Proc. Am. Philol. 
Assoc, 1888, p. xxvi.) ; in the summer of 1890 it was rewritten for publication in the 
Harvard Studies. Since that time, however, the important and long-lost treatise 
of Aristotle on the Athenian Commonwealth, recently discovered, has been pub- 
lished to the world, with its complete confirmation of the correctness of the 
writer's chief contention — a pre-Draconian date for Cylon. Instead of the frag- 
ments of this work, preserved in the Berlin Papyrus, No. CLXIIL, and in a garbled 
form in the later Greek writers, we have now a copy of the original text, prepared 
probably not far trom A.D. 100 (British Museum Papyrus, No. CXXXI.), to which 
to appeal. The paper has accordingly been revised, and in part rewritten, in 
the new light thus unexpectedly shed, not only upon the affair of Cylon, but also 
upon the whole subject of Athenian constitutional history before the time of 
Peisistratus. See F. D. Allen, The Nation, March 5, 1S91 (No. 1340, pp. 197, 198). 



I 



2 John Henry Wright. 

dence in the recorded lists of Olympic and Pythian victors, of Attic 
archons, etc., — many of which were made up contemporaneously, 
— and in the chronological studies of ancient Greek scholars, which 
were based upon these lists, we must regard most of these dates as 
fairly well established. 

Attic history opens with the rule of kings by right of birth ; this 
early merges into that of kings by election, for such must we regard 
the so-called hfe-archons.^ About the middle of the eighth century 
B.c.,^ the last hfe-archon gives place to the decennial archon : ^ this 
is evidently a movement on the part of the aristocratic famihes in 
the direction of greater control. In the first half of the seventh 
century b.c.,^ the decennial archontate is replaced by a board of nine 

1 The term I3a<n\evs was applied to the life-archons and to the decennial 
archons down to the last Medontid, Hippomenes : Photius Lex., (and Suidas) 
s.v. trap' 'iiriTov Koi Kdprjv ' . . . '\inro<fXevT]s . . . TsXevTcuos i^aa'iAevev. In Marmor 
Parium (Epp. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31) certain life-archons are named as kings: cf. 
Eusebius Chron. I. 188 / (Schone), /SatrtAevei ^A\Kfjiai(cu. In fact, the name 
fiaffiKfvs was always retained {Sa<rL\€vs alone is correct, not apx<>'v Pacn\tvs : 
Hauvette-Besnault, de Archonie Rege, Paris, 1884, p. 1). Cf. Busolt, Griech. 
Gesch. I. 400, 401, and below, p. 30, note 2, for a discussion of the name by which 
the annual archons were probably designated before Solon's time. Once for all 
I wish here to express my debt to Busolt, not alone for his abundant bibliograph- 
ical references, but also for the suggestion of many new points of view. 

'■^ The dates given for these events are those computed by the ancient chro- 
nographers, and may be regarded as fairly authentic, at least after contempo- 
rary records of Olympic victors, etc., were begun. These avaypacpai seem to 
date as far back as the first half of the eighth century B.C. Euseb. Chron. 
I. 194: IffTopovji 5e ol nepl 'Api<Tr6dr]iii.ov Thv 'H\f7ov ajs an stKoarTjs ital fB^6/j.r}s 
'OKvixTTidSos ■ ■ . ijp^afTO ol adXriral a.vaypa,<pic6ai . . . irph tov yap ouSelj 
apeypdrpT] . . . rrj Si ilKOdTrj oySor; rh (Trddiov vlkccv K6poiBos 'HAelos aveypd(pj] 
TrpwTos. Kal T] '0\vfj.Tnas avrrj Trpcorrj eraxdri, a.(p' tjs "EWtjv^s api6p.ovcn tovs xpovovs. 
ra S' avTo. T(f 'ApicrroS-fi/xo) Kal Uo\ii0ios IffTope?. Ibid. 1 92, a-nh yap tovtuiv to. 
T^s 'E\\r]vciiu xpo^oypacplas aKpi^nvs avaypa<pTJs Terei'xei'at Ss/cel • rh irph avTcev, a>s 
fKaffTCfj (p'iKov ?jv, a.ve<p-i)vavro. On the a.vaypa<pai (Macedonian, Argive, Sicyo- 
nian, Halicarnassian, etc.), see Busolt, G. G. I. 137, note 2. Mahaffy's arguments 
for a later date (about 580 B.C.) for the Olympian register do not convince me 
{Journ. Helleit. Stud. 2 [1881], pp. 164-178). 

^ B.C. 752/1, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus {^Ant. I. 71 and 75), 
Julius Africanus and Eusebius (I. 187/, q), probably based upon Eratosthenes- 
Apollodorus. 

* B.C. 682/1 (Ol. 24. 3), according to Dionysius Halic, Julius Africanus, and 
Eusebius, here likewise apparently following the system of Eratosthenes as elabo- 



The Date of Cylon. 3 

chief magistrates annually chosen. According to the recently dis- 
covered treatise on the Athenian Commonwealth, this board was 
historically developed in the following way : ^ at a very early date the 
office of Polemarch (' Field-marshal '), and afterwards that of Archon 
('Regent'), were established for the purpose of providing coadjutors 
for the King ; very much later — when the elections became annual 
— this board of three was enlarged by the addition of the six Thes- 
mothetae. At some date not to be determined, perhaps not before 
the time of Solon, but possibly when the archontate became annual, 
the Archon took precedence of the King and this precedence was 
ever afterward retained. All these changes in the nature and tenure 
of the chief magistracy clearly testify to the increasing influence of 
the leading families, seeking to limit and circumscribe, as far as might 
be, the power of rivals in office. It should be remembered that 
throughout these times, and probably for long afterward, the privilege 
of election to this board of officials belonged for the most part to 
the nobles, commonly called Eupatrids, and that the number of fami- 
lies constituting this class was not large. In the seventh century B.C. 
Athens was a community of ancient and powerful families, with social 
and political conditions very different from those that prevailed sub- 
sequently. 

The archontate, at least before the time of Solon, and to a certain 
extent in the sixth century B.C., though then somewhat shorn of its 
powers, was not only nominally but actually the highest office in 
the state ; it combined the widest executive and judicial functions, 
and was the prize eagerly sought after by the ambitious.^ The 



rated by Apollodorus. Mar. Par. (Ep. 32) gives B.C. 6S3/1. Syncellus, p. 399, 
21, 2.^. Jul. Africanus : fxera. rovrovs &pxovTis ivLavcrialoi ypid-qaav e| ehirarpi^wv, 
fvvea re apx^vTcov ' A.dT]vri<nv apxh Kar^crrddr] (cf. Euseb. Chron. II. 84, 85). 
The chronographer whom Pausanias follows (IV. 5. lo and 13. 7) puts the be- 
ginning of the annual archontate in B.C. 687/6. For an explanation of this fluc- 
tuation in dates, see Gelzer, Hist. u. Philol. Aufsatze E. Curtius gewidtnet, 1884, 
p. 20; his best example, however, has lost its value, now that Damasias is known 
to belong to the sixth, not the seventh, century B.C. For further literature, see 
Busolt, G. G.\. 407. 

^ Aristotle, Respublica Atheniensium,c 3 (Kenyon). 
Thuc. I. 126: T(^T6 5e TO tzoWo. tuiv iroXniKuv ol ivvea dpxovTfs eirpacffov ' 
Aristot. Respub. Ath. C. 13: ZriKov Sri fieyiarTiv elxev Siiva/jAV 6 Apxi^v' (paifovrai 
jap ael ffracrid^oi'Tts iTipl ravT-qs rijs apxvs. Also probably Herod. V. 71 : oiirpv- 



4 John Henry Wright. 

archons in this period are commonly men of note and importance,^ — 
not the figureheads of the fifth and later centuries, when the choice 
was by lot from a considerable number of selected persons,^ — and 
their election attested the triumphs of family or of poUtical factions, 
thus having something of the significance that attached to the elec- 
tion of generals in the age of Pericles and in the Peloponnesian war.^ 
The most important datable event following the establishment of 
the annual archontate — leaving out of the question for the present 
that which is the subject of our enquiry — is the legislation of Draco, 
in 01. 39, probably b.c. 621.* At this time, besides the enactment of 



Taviis tS)v vavKpapaiv o'iirep ivefxov t6t€ ras 'AOrivas (see below, p. 30, note 2). 
The two-year archonship of Damasias and his violent ejection from office 
(Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 13), as also the request urged upon Solon to crown his 
work by making himself tyrant, i.e. to become perpetual archon (Plut. Sol. 14) 
— much as Pittacus of iNIitylene had done, whose office as aesymnete Aristotle 
(^Pol. III. 14. 1285" 31 ff) calls an alpeTri rvpawis, — all testify to the great 
power and importance of this office in these early times. 

^ Among the notable persons who held the office of archon between 660 and 500 
B.C., we might name Miltiades the Philaid, archon in 659 B.C.; Solon, probably 
in 594 B.C., but possibly in 591 B.C.; Damasias, in 583-81 B.C. or 581-79 B.C.; 
Miltiades (the hero of Marathon?), in 524 B.C.; Isagoras, in 508 B.C., bitter and 
for a time successful rival of Cleisthenes for the control of the Athenian state 
(Herod. V. 66, oSrot ol Si/Spes iaraaiacrai/ irepl Suvd/j.ios^. It is not certain that 
Draco was archon (Aristot. Respiib. Ath. c. 4) ; see below, note 4. 

2 Under Solon, the choice of archons was made by lot from forty previously 
selected candidates (irpSKpiroi), ten from each tribe. Later there were probably 
one hundred such candidates (not five hundred — see Kenyon, p. 60, note). 
But choice by lot appears to have been suspended for many years (from 589 B.C.?), 
and was resumed about 487 B.C. (Telesinus, archon). Cf. Aristot. Respub. Ath. 
cc. 8, 22, and 13. 

^ On the significance of the choice of a-rpaT-qyoi, see Gilbert, Beitr. zur innern 
Gesch. Athens im Zeitalter d. Pelop. Krieges, Leipzig, 1S77, pp. 1-72; Beloch, 
Att. Politik seit Perikles, \%'&\, passim ; list, pp. 289 ffi Headlam's contention 
{Election by Lot at Athens, 1891, pp. 21 ff.), mainly on theoretical grounds, that 
the elections of generals at Athens had no party significance whatever, is hardly 
borne out by all the facts. The importance of the elections, however, from this 
point of view, has doubtless been unduly magnified. 

* Draco, Ol. 39 (b.c. 624-0) : Tatian, Or. ad Graec. 63; Clem. Alex. Strom. I. 
p. 366 Pott.; Suid. s.v. ApaKuv. Eusebius {Chron. 11.90,91) gives the year: 
Armen. Vers. Abrahamic year 1395 = 01. 39. 4 — 621 B.C., but Jerome 622 B.C. 
Diod. Sic. IX. Frag. 17 places Draco 47 years before Solon; 7 is a sure number 
(Tzetz. Chil. V. 350), and 47 can only be a mistake for 27 : B.C. 594 +27= 621. 



The Date of Cylon. 5 

several measures meant to remove the increasing alienation of the 
rich and the poor, and the proposal of new constitutional forms, 
— in which, since the discovery of the Aristotle papyrus, one is 
tempted to see the real beginnings of Athenian Democracy,^ — the 
laws are put on record and codified, as a safeguard for the people, 
who now are making themselves felt as a powerful element in the 
state. Factional quarrels^ between prominent families, which in 
many instances are strengthened by foreign alliances, prevail in this 
period, and are at their bitterest. The families of the Lycomidae,^ 



Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. p. 510, note 4. Aristotle {Respub. Aih. c. 4) makes Aris- 
taechmus, not Draco, archon at the time of the latter's legislation. Possibly 
Draco was chosen archon soon after proposing his reforms, to carry them into 
execution : Solon was appointed archon for a like purpose. The exactness of the 
dates ascribed to Draco is perhaps to be explained on the supposition that his 
name occurred in the archon-lists. Still, the view that Draco was archon, held 
by all modern historians — the ancients speak of him as vo/xodeTris, etc. — seems 
to rest wholly upon the word dear/xoderriffai'Ta in Paus. IX. 36. 8; since decrfioOerai 
often means 0/ &pxovTes (Dem. LVII. 66), it was inferred that 6eafj.oBeTr}<ras here 
meant &pxoiv yevS/xevos (C. F. Hermann, De Dracone : Ind. Schol. Getting. iS^g— 
i8jo, p. 5, note 15). But this inference is not justifiable: 6eafj.odeT7](Tas is here 
merely a participial rendering of dea/jLovs edrjuev in Aristotle's Respub. Ath. c. 4; 
cf. Tous v^ixovi edr}K€v, Suid. s.v. ApaKoov. The Kara rtvas of Eusebius (Syncell. 
403, 11) suggests that there was an ancient variation in the date assigned to 
Draco. 

1 B. Keil, Ber/. Philol. Wochenschrift, 1891, No. 17, p. 520. "Die Rhetorik 
das vierten Jahrhunderts [hat] die Bedeutung Drakons vollig vernichtet und 
alien Ruhm auf den Volksmann Solon gehauft," Diels, Sitzungsb. d. Berl. Akad. 
1891, p. 392. Cf. Aristot. Resptib. Ath. c. 4. 

2 Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 13, oi Se ttj TroAireia Si/erxepaiVoi'Tes . . . evtot 5e 5tck 
Trjt' irphs aWrjXovs (pLKoviKiav. 

3 The ancestral home of the Lycomidae (shortened form of * AvKOfirjSiSat, Avko- 
IxrjSrjs being a family name) was Phlya (Plut. Them. I; C.I. A. II. 1 1 13 gives 
tribe, gens, and deme, opos x^p'^ou irpotKhs 'liriroKXeia Arjfxoxo-povs AevKovoLus T 
'6cr(fi ir\(iovos aS^iov KeKpoirlSats vTroKeirai Kol AvKo/xiSais Kol ^\vev<Tt). It was 
from Phlya that the Myron came who conducted the formal prosecution of the 
Alcmeonidae after the affair of Cylon (Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. i; Plut. Sol. 
12). Busolt {G. G. I. p. 508) pointing out that Themistocles, a Lycomid, 
was charged with treason by Leobates, an Alcmeonid (Craterus, Frag. 3 in 
Miiller, F. H. G. II. p. 619; Plut. Them. 23) remarks that the family feud 
would seem to have reached back into the seventh century B.C. Diels, however, 
finds significance in the fact that Phlya (like Eleusis) was a religious com- 
munity, and the Lycomidae a distinctively priestly family; as a supporter of 



6 John Henry Wright. 

the Philaidae ^ (who were, or soon became, connected by marriage 
with Cypselus, despot of Corinth), the Alcmeonidae^ (who later 
became alUed by marriage with the tyrants of Sicyon), are prominent 
in these controversies and rivalries. It is safe to infer that the 
ancient and powerful family ' to which Cylon belonged, himself the 
son-in-law of a foreign tyrant, was equally prominent, if the issue 
of the struggle between the adherents of Cylon and the powerful 
Alcmeonidae — the banishment of the latter from Athens — is to be 
taken as a criterion. 



the ancient, simple religion of the people, outraged by the license of the free- 
thinking, high-born Alcmeonidae, who unhesitatingly violate the places deemed 
most holy by the common folk, the Lycomid Myron becomes the formal accuser 
of the family of the guilty {I.e., p. 390) . 

1 The honors received and the offices held by Philaidae are evidence of the 
prominence of this family. Miltiades was archon in 664 B.C. and 659 B.C. (Paus. 
IV. 23. 10, and VIII. 39. 3); Hippocleides, archon in 566 B.C., had unsuccess- 
fully contested, with Megacles and other prominent young Greeks, for the hand of 
Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes of Sicyon; a descendant of the earlier Miltiades, 
Miltiades, the oecist (Herod. VI. 38) was a formidable rival of Peisistratus, who 
v/as glad to make a compromise with him (Herod. VI. 35, 36; Marcellinus Thuc. 
7 : of. also Herod. VI. 103) ; Isagoras, champion of the oligarchic reactionaries 
after the final expulsion of the Peisistratidae (Herod. V. 66-73; Aristot. Respub. 
Ath. c. 20), was archon in 508 B.C. His election to the archontate at the same 
time that Cleisthenes was entrusted with the reorganisation of the state shows 
that a compromise was effected between the two rival parties. On the relation- 
ship of the family to the Cypselidae of Corinth, cf. Herod. VI. 128; Cypselus 
was the name of the father of Miltiades, the oecist of the Thracian Chersonese 
(Herod. VI. 35; cf. Topffer, Att. Gen. pp. 279, 2S0). 

2 On the Alcmeonidae, see below, pp. Ofi-isi, with the notes. 

^ Thuc. I. 126 : Y^vKiav . . . twv -naKai evyevrjs re Kal duvaris. This family, or at 
least the members of it who participated in the Cylonian attempt, went into exile 
and were excluded from the amnesty of Solon. It is probable that it early 
became extinct, though the name Kv\uy recurs in a sepulchral inscription dating 
from the sixth century B.C. (C.I. A. I. 472; Roberts, Greek Epigraphy,-^. 82; Kai- 
bel, Epigr. Graeca, no. 9) . The slab bearing this inscription was found near Liopesi, 
the ancient Paeania, and it has been suggested that the family of Cylon were Paea- 
nians (Ross, Arch. Aufs. I. p. 214) . May not the family, early leaving their ancient 
homes, have survived under a slightly different name, VvKoiv for KvXwvl The 
Gylon of history, Demosthenes' maternal grandfather, belonged to the deme 
Cerameis (Aesch. Ctes. 171), but perhaps in the marriage of his daughter to 
Demosthenes the Paeanian, there was a renewal of ancient local associations. 
Gylon himself, like Cylon, sought for his own wife the daughter of a foreign 
prince. Still, the hypothesis that makes Demosthenes a descendant, or even a 
connexion of Cylon, is not without the gravest difficulties. 



The Date of Cylo7i. 7 

Meantime — the measures of Draco proving ineffectual — the dis- 
content of the people increases ; it is greatly aggravated by a long and 
losing war with Megara, and by economical disorders at home in which 
the peasant proprietor grows poorer and poorer at the expense of the 
capitalists enriched by trade. At last in the demoralization of social 
conditions a Solon appears, and by drastic measures rescues the 
state from ruin. By his reforms the rights of all parties are measur- 
ably secured and peace and concord are ultimately established.^ 
The people, however, as over-against the nobility, the poor as over- 
against the rich, are constantly gaining in influence, and to such an 
extent that only a few years after Solon's archonship, the peasant and 
the artisan classes ^ secure a representation in the board of archons, 
if only for a short period.^ And yet in the local factional disputes 
that follow, between the men of the Plain, the Shore, and the Up- 



^ Cf. Solon, Frag. 5, and the excerpts in Aristot. Resptih. Ath. c. 12, in which 
Frags. 4, 34, and 36 appear in a fresh version, with new verses. 

"^ Ax\%\.ot. Respub. Ath. c. 13: t^ 5e Trefiirrqi {^sc. irei] /xeTaTov '26\wyos apxr]'' 
. . . Kal irdXiv erei Tre/xirTCfi . . . /nera 5e Tavra 5ia tHu avrSiv xpoj'cof' Aojuao'ias 
alpiQeis a.px<^v er?; 5vo Kal 5vo /j.i]vas ^p^fv eoos e|r)A.a9jj ;8ia tt]s ccpxTjy. efr' eSo^fy 
avTo7s Sta Th ffTacrtd^iii' &pxovTas eXeaOat 5fKa, -KivTe fisv evnaTpiSwv, rp€7s Se 
d[ir]oi/caij', Svo Se ^rnjnovpyuv, Kal ovroi rhv fxera Aafxacriav ^p^av evt,avr6v. 

The name of the peasant class in this passage is in dispute, — diroiKoi or 
&ypoiKot. In the Berlin fragment (Pap. No. 163, I* 8. ed. Diels) the word is 
unmistakably airoiKuv. In Brit. Mus. Pap. No. 131, Col. 5, line 7, there is a gap 
(d[ '\oiKwv); Kenyon, following Dion. Hal. Ant. II. 8, and thinking he sees a 
trace of p, restores aypo'iKcov. But the fac-simile shows no clear trace of p; the 
gap, though wide, could easily have been filled, as in lines 9, ii, 12, etc., by a 
sprawling ir, which indeed I fancy can be made out; the word utto in 1. 1 8 fills 
precisely the space available for the corresponding letters in a-Ko'iKuv, 1. 7. In 
Dion. Hal., accordingly, aypotKoi — which is his regular word for plebeii — must 
be a gloss on the unfamiliar aizoiKoi {i.e. rustici), used in contrast with acTToi. 
Similarly aypoiSirai. in Hesych. s.v., and in Plut. Theseus 25 yew^iopoi are glosses 
for atroLKoi. The word &ttoikoi in this sense should not arouse suspicion. If 7} 
KcifiT) awouda o'lKias iffri (Aristot. Po/. I. 2. 1252* 17), then 01 Koo/jLTjrai, i.e. 'coun- 
try folk,' rustici, might be regarded, for name-making purposes, as the &iroLKoi 
of the TT^Xts, which may be regarded as the great political ohtia. (To be sure in 
Herondas I. 2, a.ypoiKir\s is a correction for a.Troi.Ki-r)s, but below, at 13, we have 
diroi/ceo!.) 

^ This provision, viz., that the airoiK-oi (&ypoiKoi, yeai/jiSpoi) and Srifiiovpyol 
should have a share in the archontate, may have continued in force for several years. 
Diels, Abh. d. Berl. Akad., 1885, p. 19, note i. 



8 John Henry Wright. 

land,' the leaders are members of the old houses, and their aims 
are hardly those of disinterested patriots.^ The rise of Peisistratus 
to supreme control is, however, a sufficient evidence of the power 
of the populace, while his numerous reverses, brought about in great 
part by the Alcmeonid Megacles, and his compromises with his ene- 
mies, show that the ancient families are not without their influence. 



1 Although the geographical subdivision of Attica into Pedion, Paralia, Diacria 
(Mesogaea), appears to be as ancient as the time preceding the incorporation of 
Eleusis (Philoch. Frag. 35), it yet seems probable that the local factions founded 
thereon are post-Solonian in origin. Plutarch, our only authority for making 
them pre-Solonian, is inconsistent with himself; in Sol. 13, in Alor. 805 d, 
and 763 D, he represents them as pre-Solonian, and explains the choice of 
Solon as archon as a compromise between the three parties. On the other 
hand, in Sol. 29 he regards them as post-Solonian, here agreeing with Aris- 
totle {Respiib. Ath. c. 13) and Herodotus, who distinctly asserts that Peisis- 
tratus formed his party (I. 59) Kara(ppovriffas t^v rvpavviba ■qyfipe rpirriv 
(TTafftv). We have them after Solon: did they exist before? On this point 
we can only make the general answer, that nothing in our accounts of pre- 
Solonian conditions makes this probable; indeed, at the time of Cylon they 
certainly did not exist (Thuc. I. 126, Travdr]fj.el 4k tS>v aypwv), and the lan- 
guage of Herodotus tells against it. With Diels (I.e., p. 20), we must suppose 
Plutarch here guilty of dittography. The recently discovered Respub. Ath. (c. 2 
ad init. compared with c. 5) explains the blunder. Plutarch finds in his authority 
— which is, or is based upon, an abridged form of Aristot. Respub. Ath. — for the 
time immediately following the Cylonian troubles and preceding that of Solon, 
words to the effect : tt/v iro.'KaMv adOis arrdaLv virep rrjs iroKtreias effTacr'taCov 
(.Sol. 13), which a glance at the original text of Aristotle would have shown him 
referred only to the contest between the notables and the commons (aracnda-at 
rovs T6 yvoipifxovs Koi rh ir\rj9os}. His explanation of this contest as that between 
the local factions is thus wholly gratuitous. The whole passage, from oa-as t) 
X'^P'^ to Tovs iTf povs KpaTT]<Tas (Sol. 13) has the appearance of a misplaced gloss. 
See below, p. 25, note 3. 

For a discussion of the names of these parties, see Landwehr, Philol., Suppl.- 
Bd. V. (1884) pp. 154-7, and for some remarks about the Parali, of. below, pp. 53 
and 57, and notes. 

■^ The leader of the Pediaei was Lycurgus, probably of the ancient family of the 
Eteobutadae (BouraSaj erv/xoi, C.I.A. II. 1386; but the eiiyeveia of the orator 
Lycurgus refers to moral qualities, not to nobility of birth — pseud. Plut. 
Vit. X. Or. 842 d) ; that of the Diacrii was Peisistratus, afterward tyrant. A 
Peisistratus was archon at the time of the ancient battle of Hysiae (B.C. 669? 
Paus. II. 24. 7) ; and while we cannot establish an ancient family of rieio-i- 
ffrpaTiSat, — as would W. Petersen, Hist. Att. Gent., 1885, pp. 71 ff., 114; cf, 
Topffer, I.e., p. 228, note, — it is at least certain that Peisistratus claimed descent 
from the ancient stock of the Neleidae (Herod. V. 65) ; the supposition that he 



The Date of Cylon. 9 

Such, in barest outlines, were the poUtical movements at home. 
Early in the seventh century B.C. it would seem that something of 
the spirit of foreign conquest was active in the subjugation and absorp- 
tion into the Athenian state of the commonwealth of Eleusis.^ Later 
on, but some time before Solon, the spirit of war, whatever its occa- 
sion, stirred up a prolonged and humiliating contest with Megara for 
the possession of Salamis.^ Still later, commercial enterprise showed 
itself in an increasing trade,^ both export and import, in which the 
ancient aristocracy did not disdain to engage.^ Towards the close 
of the seventh century B.C., Athens attempted to gain a foothold in the 
Hellespont,^ undoubtedly in order to ensure to herself some share of 
the import trade in corn from the shores of the Black Sea, which at 
that time appears to have become the monopoly of Megara.® 



belonged to the yeVos Phila'idae (Westermann in Pauly, R. E. V. 1646, quoted by 
Petersen, I.e., p. 1 15) arose from the fact that his native place (Plut. Sol. 10; Plat. 
Hipparch. 228 B) was Phila'idae, i.e. the village that became the Cleisthenean 
StJiUos of that name. For the family of the Alcmeonidae, from which came 
Megacles, the leader of the Parali, see below, pp. 42 ff., and notes. 

1 On the lateness of the incorporation of Eleusis into the Athenian state, cf. 
Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 379, 419. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (not long 
after 700 B.C.; Kuno Francke, De Hymn, in Cer. Horn, compositione, dictione, 
aetate, 1881, p. 27) Eleusis is an independent city. Athens once established to 
the north, a conflict with her neighbor Megara was inevitable. 

^ A long and bitter war with Megara, which had for its result the surrender 
of Salamis, precedes the political activity of Solon : Justin, II. 7 {i.e. Ephorus : — 
prope usque interitum armis dimicatum fuerat), and Solon, Frag. 2 {tuv 2oAajtti- 
vatbe.To>v . . . x«'^67roV t' oiXffxos). The war for the recovery of the island probably 
took place after Solon's legislation, and in one of its later stages Peisistratus took 
part in it. Cf. Niese, Zur Geschichte Solons und seiner Zeit {Histor. Unter- 
siicJi. A. Schafer gewidmet, Bonn, 1882), pp. 22 ff.; also below, p. 73, and note. 

^ On the beginning and growth of Athenian trade, see Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 
500 ff., and below, p. 55, and notes. Solon, Frag. 13. 44: 6 jxev Kara trSvTov 
dAarai | iv vt)v(r\v xp-^^av otKoSe K^pdos &yeiv \ IxOuoevr', k.t.\. 

* According to Hermippus, quoted by Plut. So/. 2, Solon himself was a trader 
(lipfXTIcre vios &v en irphs i/.nropiav), and we are also told that it was for the sake 
of xpTj^arior^os rather than TroAvireipia and laropia that his travels were undertaken 
(Plut. Sol. 25 ff.; cf. Niese, /.f., p. 8). Aristotle {Respitb. Ath. c. 11) remarks of 
Solon, that after his legislation, aTroSTj/niav iiroiTi<raTO Kar iixnoplav a/xa Kal Oecopiav 
els PuyvTTTOv. 

^ Herod. V. 94 and 95; Strabo XIII. 599. The date of the conquest of 
Sigeum was probably about 6io B.C. Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. p. 513; and Topffer, 
Quaest. Pisistr. p. 107. 

^ H. Droysen, Athen. u. d. Westen, p. 41, and Busolt, G. G. I. p. 500. 



lO John Henry Wright. 

11. 

THE PROBLEM. 

At some point of time within the period outlined above, not earlier 
than 636 B.c.^ and not later than 504 B.C.,- occurred the episode of 
Cylon.^ 

Cylon, a young Athenian of high family, who has in 640 b.c. won a 
victory atOlympia, at the time. of a subsequent Olympic festival, with 
the aid of youthful comrades and of troops furnished by his father- 
in-law Theagenes, tyrant of Megara, attempts to seize the Acropolis 
of Athens and make himself master of the city. The people, however, 
rise eft masse against him, hurrying in from the country, and invest 
the Acropolis.* The siege lasts long ; most of the besiegers with- 
draw, leaving matters in the charge of the nine archons.^ Accord- 
ing to the earlier and probably more authentic accounts, Cylon and 
his brother escape,® while the comrades left behind are sorely pressed : 



1 Not before 636 B.C., because this was the first Olympic year after Cylon had 
won his Olympic victory. Jul. Africanus s. 01. Ae (b.c. 640; p. 13, Rutgers; ap. 
Euseb. Chron. I. 197, 19S) : [Tjpia/coo-Tr/ we^TTTTj. S^aTpos Aafcoii' OTa^iov. [/<:]al 
diavXou KuAcof 'A67]vaios 6 iTn9e/ji.evos rvpavvidi. 

2 The episode of Cylon is distinctly pre-Solonian : to be sure, Herodotus (V. 71) 
says of it only ravra Trph ttjs TlfiaKTrpaTov •^Aucitjs iyevero, and Thucydides(I. 126), 
Kv\wu . . . Tuv iraAai. Solon's archon year was either 594/3 B.C. (01. 46. 3, Sosi- 
crates ap. Diog. Laert. I. 2. 62, i.e. here probably Apollodorus — Diels, Rhein. 
Mus. 31, p. 21; of. Clinton, Fasti Helle7i. II. p. 298) or 591/0 B.C. (if the text of 
Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 14 be correct — 31 years before Corneas, i.e. 660 ■\- 31). 
Ad. Bauer (ZzV. zi. Hist. Fo7-sch. zu Aristot. 'A.d. IloA., 1891, pp. 46, 47), who 
accepts B.C. 661/0 as Comeas's date (after Topffer, Qiiaest. Pisistr. pp. 142 ff.), 
thinks that the Sevrepv in Aristotle (/-f.) is a copyist's mistake for rerdprcf, i.e. 
that 5* was taken to be 'two' instead of 'four'; the correction would yield 
(661 + 33) B.C. 594 as Solon's date, and thus confirm the Apollodorean tradition. 

2 The account given above is a condensed statement, only those items that 
bear on the date being emphasized. 

* Thuc. I. 126: oi 5' ' MrivaloL . . . i^oijOriadv re TravS-rj/xil iK ruv a.ypwv eir 
avTOvs Kal trpoffKade^Sfievoi iwoXwpKoup. 

^ Thuc. I. 126: xP^f'o^ ^6 ewiyiyvofievov ol 'AOrjvaloi Tpvx^fJ-^voi rf irpoatSpia. 
airrj\6ov ol ttoAAoi, iiriTpf\pavTfs to7s ifvea dpxovci. t)iv (pvXaK^f Kol rh irav aiiTO- 
Kparopai Siadelvai r/ Uv apicTTa ^layiyvdiaKooai. 

^ So Thuc. I. 126. But Herod. V. 71, in his briefer account, says nothing of 
escape; hence probably arose the erroneous statement of the later authorities. 



The Date of CyIo7i. 



II 



some of them perish of starvation, and the survivors take refuge at 
the altar of Athena Pohas. As the temple is in danger of pollution 
from the presence of dead bodies, the officers in charge, unquestion- 
ably the nine archons, promise the suppliants their lives and a formal 
trial, and lead them away. This promise is broken ; while still under 
divine protection the suppliants are slain,^ some at or near the altar 
of the Eumenides on the Areopagus, whither they had fled in terror, 
and others on their way thither.^ The guilt of this sacrilege attaches 
to the Alcmeonidae, and in particular to Megacles, named in the 
later authorities as archon ; the family of this man and its adherents 
are tainted by this crime, and not only for two generations, but for 
more than two centuries, remain under a curse.'' The captured sur- 
vivors of the party of Cylon are subsequently tried and banished.* 



^ According to Plut. Sol. 12, the Cylonians fastened a thread to the statue (of 
Athena), and held this as they descended; the thread broke, and Megacles and 
his fellow-archons attacked them. The breaking of the thread was doubtless the 
Alcmeonidean excuse for the sacrilege of slaying suppliants, it being taken as a 
sign that Athena had withdrawn her favor. This thread may be meant in the 
abbreviated form of the story in Schol. I. Ar. Eq. 445 (e^arfoz'Tes tV iKSTtipiai' • 
7)j Stappveiar]s /r.r.A..). 

2 Thuc. I. 126. 

^ evays7s, Thuc. I. 126, cf. 127, of Pericles; aAirripioi, Ar. Eq. 445 with Scholia, 
and often. For the conception among the Athenians, see Junghahn, Agos-siihne 
bei Thuc. I. 126-ijg, Berlin, 1890. 

* This may be inferred from the language of the provisions of the amnesty-law 
of Solon (Plut. Sol. 19, arifiaiv o<toi an/jLOL ^crau vplv ^ 'S,6Ka>va. &p^ai, eTTLTifxovs elvai 
TrAyjf offoi e| Apeiov irdyov 7) '6(T0i iK tSiv e<peTajv 7) sk irpuTaveiov KaTadiKa(7$evTes 
vrrh Tuv ^a(Ti\ewv [i.e. presiding archons — BacrtXTJs, one for each court?] . . . eirl 
TvpapylSt i<p evy V ore 6 Oecrfxhs i<pavr) SSe). The penalty of ddvaros, at least 
later fixed for one convicted in a S'ikt] rvpawidos, was excluded by the terms of 
the compromise between the Cylonians and the archons (Thuc. I. 126, Herod. 
V. 71). Schomann thinks that the court was one held by the TrpvTaveis rwv 
yavicpdpwv {Jahrb. f. Philol. Ill [1875], p. 460), a doubtful hypothesis; see 
below, p. 32, note 2. Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. p. 408, note i. 

Stahl, who in Rhein. Mus. 46 (1891), p. 251, explains ew: irpuravelov as refer- 
ring to "das Archontengericht," withdraws this explanation, on p. 481, in view 
of what he supposes to be the meaning of Aristotle's Respub. Ath. cc. 3, 8, 
and explains this court to be the Areopagus. But this can hardly have been 
the case. The language of the amnesty-law distinguishes between the three 
courts (Areopagus, Ephetae, Archons), and ascribes decrees e-n\ rvpawiSi to the 
last. Again, the l,6\a)VQs ddvTos of Aristot. Respub. Alh. c. 8, used of a regu- 



12 John Henry Wright. 

Is it possible to date this event? The writers that have inde- 
pendently examined the available evidence have come to very diverse 
conclusions. Herodotus is the oldest authority for the statement 
that the event fell on an Olympic year. In the hst of Olympic 
victors drawn up by Sextus Julius Africanus, and embodied by Euse- 
bius in his Chronicofi, Cylon is named as victor in the Sta-uXos at 
Olympia in 01. 35 (640 B.C.). This date, then, is the tertninus post 
guem, while the fairly well established date of the archonship of 
Solon, B.C. 594, is the terjnimis a?ite quern} The only years that 
would satisfy the conditions are, accordingly, B.C. 636, 632, 628, 624, 
620, 616, 612, 608, 604, 600, 596. With the exception of B.C. 624 
and the earlier dates, there is hardly one of the other years that 
has not found its advocates : thus, B.C. 620 has been claimed by 
Clinton,^ C. Peter ^; 616, by Duncker,* Hertzberg,^ Holm^; 612, — a 
favorite date, — by Corsini,^ W. Wachsmuth,* L. Ross,^ Schomann,^" 



lation providing that the Areopagus should pass judgment upon conspirators 
against the state, shows that previously another court had talcen action in such 
matters. In pre-Solonian times, there must have been much confusion of jurisdic- 
tions : Solon simplified the system of courts, regulating the competency of each. 

The authenticity of Plutarch's quotation is attested by the fact that this ancient 
law was incorporated by Pythocleides in his amnesty-law, proposed B.C. 403 (An- 
doc. Myst. 78) ; it was so incorporated doubtless only as a venerable but largely 
otiose formula, since the judicial system involved in it had ceased to exist with 
Solon's reforms. It was in keeping with the spirit of the times, when the laws of 
Draco and Solon were revived as the main stay of the state {C.I.A. I. 61 ; Andoc. 
ib. 81, 82). 

1 For these dates, see above, p. lo, notes i and 2. 

2 Clinton, Fasti Hellen. s.a. (I. p. 206). 
^ C. Peter, G?-iech. Zeittafeln, p. 30, s. a. 

* Duncker, Gesch. d. Alierthuffis, VI.^ p. 96, note 2. 

5 Hertzberg, Gesch. d. Griech. im Alterthtan {Allg. Weltg. II.) p. 106. 

^ Holm, Gesch. Griechenlatids, I. p. 463 (" vielleicht um 616 v. Chr."). 

■^ Corsini, Fast. Att. III. pp. 63-65. " 01. XLII. Megacles Archon. Ergo quum 
Cylon 01. XXXV. victor in Olympiis fuerit, ipsius facinus patriaeque occupandae 
consilium longe commodius ad 01. XLII. quam ad XLV. revocabitur, qua Cylon 
ipse 60 aetatis annum superasset. . . . Ergo Cylonis facinus quod Olympiorum 
tempore patratum fuit adeoque Megaclis principatus ad ineuntem 01. XLII. 
sive alteram ipsi proximam referri debet." The date 612 B.C. may be regarded 
as the vuIgate date, and Corsini is doubtless responsible for it. 

8 W. Wachsmuth, Hellett. Alterthivnskunde? I. p. 470. 

® L. Ross, A7-ch. Aufs. I. p. 215. 

1" Schom2.nx\, Jahrb. f. Philol. iii (1875), p. 456. 



The Date of Cylou. 13 

Grote,^ Duruy,^ G. Gilbert,^ W. Petersen*; 600, by Scaliger^; 599, 
by Boeckh.^ Several writers leave the date uncertain : Curtius "' thinks 
it fell between B.C. 612 and 596; H. Stein/ between b.c. 620 and 
600 j Landwehr,^ before B.C. 612; E. Abbott,^" not later than B.C. 
612 ; Pohlmann^^ is uncertain whether it was before or after Draco. 

Since the hint was thrown out by Niebuhr,'^ the first writer of 
prominence/^ so far as I know, to urge that the episode of Cylon is 
to be placed at some date nearer 640 B.C. than 600 B.C., at B.C. 636, 
632, 628, or 624 — i.e. before and not after Draco — is Busolt." A 
re-examination of the evidence, and a consideration of a few points 
not hitherto noted, tend to confirm the correctness of this view. 

The arguments upon which the claim for the earlier or pre- 
Draconian date is based are fourfold : (i) those drawn directly from 
the language of the best and most trustworthy sources ; (2) those 
drawn from a consideration of the probable age, at the time of the 



1 Grote, Hist. Greece, III. p. 88 (Harper ed.), 

2 Duruy, Histoire des Grecs, 1887, I. p. 378. 

3 G. Gilbert, Handb. d. Griech. Staatsalt. I. p. 128 ("um 612"). 
* Petersen, Hist. Gent. Attic, p. 79. 

5 Scaliger, 'OAujUTrtaSajf avaypacpr], s. 01. 45. I (Scheibel, p. 25, note 141). 

6 Boeckh, Find. II. i, p. 391 (" Megacles, 01. 45. 2 archon fuit"); H- 2, pp. 
301, 303. But see below, p. 51, note i. 

^ Curtius, GescA. Griech. \!> pp. 668, 669. 

^ Stein, Note on Herod. V. 71. 

9 Landwehr, Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V. (1884), p. 134. 

10 E. Abbott, History of Greece, I. pp. 292, 296. 

11 Pohlmann, Grundz. d. polit. Gesch. Griechenlattds (I. Miiller, Handb. III.), 
p. 385, note I. 

12 Niebuhr, Vortrage iiber alte Geschichte, I. (1847), p. 314, "das erstere [S70S 
KuA-ioveioj/] schon in die alte zeiten, in den Anfang der Olympiaden gehort." But 
as Niebuhr without hesitation puts Theagenes, Cylon's father-in-law, in Ol. 40 
{ib. p. 331), his suggestion as to Cjdon's date loses significance. 

13 Schomann, Jahrb. f. Philol. ill (1875), p. 449, admitted that Herodotus's 
rjMKiccrewv must mean youthful persons of the same age with Cylon, but did not 
draw the necessary inferences as to an earlier date than 612 B.C., which he accepted 
on p. 456. 

1* Busolt, Griech. Gesch. I. (1885) pp. 498, 505, with notes: the only argument 
distinctly urged by Busolt is that based on i]\iKi(jni<x>v and iuo/x-nfff, expressions 
to be used only of young persons ; he sustains this argument by a communication 
from H. Stein (ib. p. 505, note 2), on the probable meaning of these expressions in 
this passage. Of course, since the recovery of the Respub. Ath., i.e. since Janu- 
ary, 1891 — the earlier date for Cylon has been universally accepted (see p. 14). 



14 John Henry Wright. 

affair, of the Megacles concerned, as also from a consideration of 
certain points in the history of the Alcmeonidae in these times ; 
.(3) those drawn from the probable date of Theagenes, Cylon's 
father-in-law. These considerations, it is believed, will be enough 
to create a strong presumption in favor of the date proposed. If, 
finally, after objections have been met, it can be further shown 
(4) that the adoption of this date, rather than a later one, will 
disclose something of a natural sequence and coherence in the move- 
ments of the time, as regards both the domestic and the foreign rela- 
tions of Athens, this fact must be regarded as a confirmatory argument 
of no small force. 

As preliminary, however, to the special discussion of the Date of 
Cylon, two matters call for brief treatment : first, the character and 
credibility of our primary sources of information on the subject, and, 
secondly, the nature and extent of the connexion of the Alcmeonidae 
with the affair of Cylon, — at least in so far as these two questions 
touch the problem before us. 

III. 

THE STORY OF CYLON: OUR SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 

The story of Cylon is first told by Herodotus (V. 71), very briefly, 
as an episode in his account of Cleisthenes of Athens, of Alcmeonid 
descent, in explanation of the reason why Cleisthenes was obliged 
to leave Athens as erayT^s. It is again given, with fuller details and 
with interesting variations, by Thucydides (I. 126), likewise as an 
episode, to account for the demand made by the Spartans, at the 
opening of the Peloponnesian war, for the banishment of Pericles who 
was also an Alcmeonid. The next author who we know told the story 
— there must have been others — was Aristotle in his x^thenian 
Commonwealth. It was probably given in full. In the copy of this 
work recently recovered, the early chapters have been lost, and we 
have references only to the last incidents — the trial of the Alcmeo- 
nidean faction, the casting of the bones of the guilty dead beyond 
the borders, the perpetual exile of the family, and the subsequent 
purification of the city by Epimenides of Crete.^ All these state- 

^ Aristot. Respub. Ath. I : KaTayvaKydevros 8e tov &yovs [aiirjoi yuev eK rwv 
TacpaiP i^eP\Tj8riffaf, rh 5i yivos avTuv eipuyft' aeKpuyiaf. ^EntfieviSr]! 5' o Kp}]S iwl 



The Date of Cylon. 15 

ments, which stand at the very beginning of the treatise as preserved, 
and are followed by /Ltera raSra, preceded the account of Draco ; this 
fact makes it clear that Aristotle put before the time of the Draconian 
legislation, at least the affair of Cylon if not its consequences here 
touched upon. Theophrastus appears to have touched the event at 
least to the extent of asserting that it was the occasion of the dedi- 
cation by Epimenides of two altars on the Areopagus, to Violence 
and to Pitilessness.^ 

The event is briefly referred to in the Excerpts from the Constitu- 
tions of Heracleides ; ^ this account, based on a lost portion of 



Toi/Tots eKaOripe rrjv Tr6Mv. With Kirclihuff I read \_a\iT'\oi for Kenyon's \_veKp]oi, 
which is impossible because of the missing article. Diels proposes [^/ceivjot. 

^ Theophrastus appears to be, directly or indirectly (through Ister?), Cicero's 
authority in De Legg. II. ii. 28, as also that of Clem. Alex. Ad Gent. 2. 26. See 
below, p. 67, note i. 

2 Commonly known as Heracleides Ponticus, and of late identified with Hera- 
cleides Lembos. The authorship of these Excerpts (the manuscripts usually begin 
with the words e/c tuv 'HpaKKeiSov irtpl iroAtreias 'Adrjvaiaiv, but include also other 
iro\iTe7at) is a matter of conjecture. Schneidewin (^Heraclidis politiarum quae 
extant, 1847) showed that they could not have been composed by the philosopher 
Heracleides Ponticus, and demonstrated their dependence on Aristotle. Unger 
(^Rhein. Mas. 38 (1883), p. 504) claims them for Heracleides Lembos (fl. under 
Ptolemy VI. Philometor — B.C. 180-145; Suid. s.v. 'UpaK\fidr}s '0|upi7X'T»js, and, 
according to Diog. Laert. V. 694, from Calliatis in the Pontus), and in this has 
been followed by Busolt and others; but according to Rose (Aristot. Fragm., 
p. 260) incorrectly. The author of these Excerpts would seem not to have been 
from Pontus, for [Aristot.] Respub. Argiv. (Rose, Aristot. Frag. 481 ; preserved 
in Orion, Ety7?i. p. 118, 19), cites Heracleides Ponticus for a statement not found 
in the Excerpts. Rose claims that he was a pupil o"^ Didymus drawing from 
his master : thus in [Aristot.] Resptib. Satnior. (Rose, Aristot. Fragm. 573; Schol. 
Ar. Av. 471 = Heracl. Exc. Pol. 2,'^'), Didymus — i.e. the original of the Scho- 
liast — cites Aristotle by name, but Heracleides in his quotation from Didymus 
omits the name; see Rose, Aristot. Pseudepigr., pp. 521, 532; also 479, 481. The 
frequent resemblances in phraseology between the Scholia (and certain Suidan 
glosses) and the Excerpts also suggest Didymus as the intermediate. Unger (/.f. p. 
504) urges, that since with one unimportant exception — where Aristotle might 
have expressed two opinions — all the statements in the Heracleidean Excerpts 
coincide even verbally with what is extant of the Aristotelian YloKiTelai, we must 
infer that Aristotle has been slavishly pirated (hence xifx&os') ; this is undoubtedly 
true, but it looks as if the material had come through a Didymean channel. Rose 
(^l.c. p. 491) intimates that Didymus — i.e. the author of the original of the Excerpts 
— combined material from Ephorus with his extracts from the Aristotelian TloXiTilai. 



1 6 John Henry Wright. 

Aristot. ResJ^iib. Afh., though very brief, furnishes one or two items not 
found in Herodotus or Tliucydides : the name of Megacles as the leader 
of the party that slew the fleeing Cylonians is mentioned for the first 
time. The Scholiast on Aristoph. Eq. 445 gives three versions of the 
story in forms which show that Herodotus and Thucydides were 
the primary sources, together with some other writer on Attic history 
not to be identified : the items not given by Herodotus and Thu- 
cydides are, in the first version (Schol. I.), a /cpt'o-ts h 'Apetw Trayo) 
(probably, as we find it nowhere else, a misunderstanding of the 
KaOe^ofxevovs 8e nvas Koi ctti twv o-e/xvwj/ Oewv of Thucydides), and 
the mention of the fact that the Cylonians fastened to the throne of 
the goddess some token that they were suppliants, on the breaking 
of which they were stoned by the Athenians. The second and third 
versions (Schol. U., HI.) are distinctly Thucydidean, and add nothing 
while they omit much (the KariXafSe tyjv aKpoVoAtv ws etti TvpavviSi 
of Thucydides becomes iireXOlov rfj aKpoiroXu Xrjarevet KOi aXt'(rK€Tat) . 

Pausanias three times mentions Cylon : once (I. 28. i), in comment- 
ing upon a bronze statue of him seen on the acropolis of Athens, he 
expresses surprise that a statue should have been erected to one who 
attempted to make himself tyrant, and would explain it by the fact 
that Cylon was very handsome, as well as famous for his victory at 
Olympia in the StauXos and for his marriage with the daughter of 
Theagenes of Megara. Again, in I. 40. i, he refers to this marriage 
aUiance ; and in VH. 25. 3, speaking of the treatment received by 
suppliants at Athens, he says that the magistrates put to death the ad- 
herents of Cylon, suppliants of Athena, who had seized the acropolis, 
and that in consequence the murderers and their descendants were 



It is, however, more likely that Aristotle himself furnished this material, obtaining 
it perhaps from Ephorus, or, what is more likel)', from the same sources as Ephorus 
(and for that matter, the same as the fiioi of Satyrus, Sotion, and Hermippus), 
and that thus are to be explained coincidences of statement between the £x£. 
Pol. and the fragments of Ephorus, and what we know of the l3ioypd<poi, named 
above, where some writers (Busolt, G. G. I. p. 437) claim a non-Aristotfilian 
origin for portions of the Excerpts. The close and perhaps exclusive depend- 
ence of the Heracl. Exc. Pol. on the Aristotelian noAtrelm can no longer be 
denied. Indeed, since the recovery of the Respub. Aih., we may place yet greater 
confidence in them as giving us as far as they go — of course in a very much 
abridged form, occasionally in a different order, and with many corruptions — not 
a little of what was to be found in the noAtretai. 



The Date of Cylon. ij 

cFayeis t^s Oi.ov. DiOGENES Laertius (I. 10. iio) briefly mentions 
the KvAwveioi/ ayos, intimating that it was, in the opinion of some, the 
cause of the visit to Athens of the Cretan Epimenides, who, according 
to the chronological authority from whom Diogenes drew, came to 
Athens in 01. 46 (b.c. 596-2). Plutarch {^Sol. 12) gives a full account 
of the episode, with some additional details which are highly signifi- 
cant : Megacles the archon is mentioned as having promised the suppli- 
ants safety until trial ; on the breaking of the thread that connected the 
suppliants with the statue of the goddess, he and his fellow-archons 
attacked the Cylonians, stoning them, and butchering those that fled 
for refuge to the altars, sparing only such as appealed to the wives of 
their assailants : hence the Alcmeonidae were styled evayeis and 
became objects of hatred. Afterward the survivors of the Cylonians, 
becoming strong, kept up for a long period an agitation against the 
family of Megacles. In due time, the quarrel being at its height and 
the people divided, Solon interposed with the leaders of the Athenians 
and persuaded the polluted Alcmeonidae to submit to a trial and to 
the decision of three hundred citizens. Myron of Phlya became their 
formal accuser, and they were found guilty ; the living were banished, 
and the bodies of the dead were cast forth beyond^ the borders.^ 
Julius Afric.anus, quoted by Eusebius, furnishes us, as we have seen, 
the date of Cylon's victory at Olympia (01. 35, B.C. 640). Finally, 
SuiDAS, s.iw. KuXwi/ciov ayos and IleptKX'^s, has two glosses on the sub- 
ject : he or his source blunderingly connects the event with Pericles, 
confounding him with the MeyaKX^s of the original documents.^ A 



^ This detail — the casting of the bones of the dead beyond the borders — 
cannot now be explained (Busolt, G. G. I. p. 508, note 2) as a mere dittography 
of the procedure in the case of the banishment of Cleisthenes (Thuc. I. 126 ad 
fin.; cf. Herod. V. 70, 72). Aristotle's language {\ahT\o\ fj.ev Kirchhoff, [e/cetvjot 
fxiv Diels) intimates that the guilt lay mainly with the dead; the i^opi(riJ.6s of 
their bones was their punishment, and the family as tainted went into exile. 

^ Plutarch also accepts the connexion of Epimenides with the affair of Cylon. 
And the same is true of Cicero and Clement of Alexandria. See below, p. 67, 
note I. 

3 Kiister's suggestion, adopted by Bernhardy (^Suid. Lex., s.v. KvXwvuov &yos), 
that the original reading was ot irpb rod HepucAeovs, or ot trpoyovoi. rov TlepiKKeovs, 
is shown to be unlikely (i) by the language of Suid. s.v. UepiKXijs, and (2) by 
that of the Heracl. J^xc. Pol. 2, of which the gloss of Suidas {s.v, KvAiivetov &yos) 
is virtually an abridgment (see next note). 



i8 John lit- my Wright. 

fuller gloss is here condensed, with the omission of essential details : 
thus the suppliants are spoken of only as fleeing to the cre/j,mt 6'eat, 
whereas in the fuller accounts they were suppliants of Athena, and 
fled to the o-e/xvat OtaC only as an incident in their eflbrts to escape.^ 
Suidas adds the item, that, while opposition was made, Megacles 
(HepiKA^s) refused to be persuaded.- In still another gloss {s.v. 
'E7rt/x£nS)/5) of Suidas we read that Epimenides, born in 01. 30, 
purified Athens of the KvXwtmv ayos about 01. 44, being then an old 
man. 

The problem of the relation of these various accounts to each 
other, and to their sources which are now lost to us, is one that 
cannot be satisfactorily solved. But a few important considerations 
may be pointed out. 

A chasm of several centuries seems to separate the earlier authori- 
ties from the later : are we, therefore, to remain satisfied with the 
meagre though vivid accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides and to 
look no further? Are all the new items given in the later writers to 
be viewed with suspicion, not alone such as contradict earlier state- 
ments, but also such as supplement them ? Are we, with Symmachus, 
to assert that a statement is false because it does not occur in the 
narrative of Herodotus or of Thucydides ? ^ 

In the well-known passage at the opening of his history, Thucydi- 
des, seeking to justify himself for limiting his scope to the war 
between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, remarks that the 
events preceding this war, both in the immediate and in the remoter 
past, are at once obscure and unimportant, — obscure and difficult 
of investigation through the long lapse of time, unimportant mainly 



1 Heracl. Exc. Pol. 2 (Rose, Aristot. 
Fragni. 61 1, p. 371). Toiiy^uETa KuA.coj'oj 
Sia Tii]v rvpavviZa eirl rhv 0cafxhv T77S deov 
■rrecpevyoTas o'i irepl Me-yawAea airiKjeLvcLV. 



Suid. s.v. KvXcii/eiov dyos . . . KvXctivos. 
ov KaTarpvyovTa tTri ras (re/jLvas 6eas airo- 
airaffavTes avrhv ol irepl Ofpi/cAea rhv 
'A6r]i>a7ov arriKriivav. 



Suid. ^.7^ .• TI^plk\t}s . . . oi 5s avTeTTfraTTOv, UepiK\TJs Se ovk eia TrelOecrdai. 
Here is probably a confusion arising from the words of Thuc. I. 127, ovk eia 
inreiKeii', where Pericles is mentioned as resisting the demands, not, to be sure, of 
Athenians, but of the Lacedaemonians. Cf. also Thuc. I. 135 : ol de 'Ae-rjpawi . . . 

bchol. Ar. £(/. 84: 2'',uMaXos 5e (prjai ip^vSecrdai. nepl &ef.ucrT0K\eovs " ovre yap 
'HpoSoTos ovTe QovKvbidrjs tcrropel. 



TJic Date of Cylon. 19 

from the point of view of military science, but also in all other 
respects. It thus happens that upon i\.ttic history before the expul- 
sion of the Peisistratidae he has very little to say ; ^ he does not men- 
tion the great law-giver Solon, whose half- mythical figure dominates 
the following centuries,^ nor does he name even Cleisthenes the 
reformer. Herodotus, the range of whose history is more extended, 
has occasion to treat more fully of early Attic history ; but even he 
when he passes beyond the generation preceding the Persian wars, 
has little to tell but piquant and untrustworthy anecdotes : his Solon 
is the friend of Croesus, and the traveller in Egypt ; Solon's services 
to Athens as a reformer are dismissed with only a word.^ It would 
seem, then, that the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. had no clear 
historical impressions of much that preceded the times of Peisistratus. 
Later the case was different in some particulars. 

In the narratives both of Herodotus and of Thucydides one episode 
of pre-Peisistratidean Athenian history stands out in unique promi- 
nence, — this episode of Cylon. This prominence is due to two 
causes : Cylon was the only person on record besides Peisistratus who 
had attempted by violence * to make himself tyrant of Athens ; and, 
secondly, in the suppression of this attempt an important family had 
become tainted with sacrilege, receiving a stain that centuries of brill- 
iant public service were powerless fully to wash away. The vividness 
and precision of the language of the two historians, and the fulness 
of detail given by Thucydides, are to be explained from the fact that 
in the traditions both of the Alcmeonidae and of their hereditary 
enemies the main features of the story had been handed down with 
singular definiteness and amplitude. Such vagueness as may be dis- 
covered in these accounts springs from the fact that both accounts 
are given incidentally, as episodes, and from the habit of these 



1 The language of Thuc. VI. 54 implies that uncertain stories were current in 
his day about the Peisistratidae. 

2 Niese, Zur Gesch. Solons, pp. i, 2. 

3 As legislator, Herod. I. 29, II. 177 (see p. 53, note); as friend of Croesus, 
I. 29-33; author of a poem in honor of the despot Philocyprus, V. 113. 

* Aristotle (^Respub. Ath. c. 13) now teaches us that the prolonged archonship 
of Damasias was a usurpation of supreme power in the state. In Solon Frag. 
32, Ti/parviSos 5e koX Blris o/xeiAixou [ ov Kadiitpd/xTii' (cf. ;^2- 5' ^)> ^^ allusion to 
Damasias has been seen by Diels and Ad. Bauer. 



20 John Henry Wright. 

historians in treating subjects of this sort, — apparently not from any 
uncertainty about the main points of the story.^ 

The apparatus for the study of the earUer Athenian history used 
by the writers of the fifth century B.C. was not so extensive as that 
of their successors after the middle of the following century.^ Not 
to attempt an exhaustive survey, it will be enough to call attention to 
a few leading names. Thucydides, whatever may be one's views as 
to the presence of personal bias in his writing, had certainly set the 
example of systematic research, although his enquiries were mainly 
confined to events of his own day. A vast amount of material was 
available, awaiting the scientific student : family, local, political, and 
religious traditions ; records of ancient ordinances, of laws passed, and 
of legal decisions rendered, from before the time of Draco ^ ; probably 
lists of officials, secular and religious ; and a certain amount of literary 
compositions, as the poems of Solon. Hellanicus, the contemporary 
of Thucydides, in his four books on Attic history had used these 
recorded lists and inscriptions, but his work was inaccurate and pro- 
voked the criticism of Thucydides and of Ephorus.* The historians 
Ephorus and Theopompus, in the next century, had gathered a vast 
amount of material, and though their ideas as to historical evidence 



i Is Thucydides (I. 126) correcting Herodotus (V. 71)? This is substantially 
the view of Wecklein {Ber. Bayer. Akad. 1873, pp. 33 ff.), and others, including 
Busolt (C. G. I. pp. 504, 505), who gives the bibliography. Schomann {Jahrb. 
f. Philol. Ill [1875], p. 452) controverts it, perhaps not wholly successfully. 
The answer to the question is determifted by the meaning we give to Herodotus's 
irpvTavies tuiv vavKpdpuv, on which see below, p. 30, and notes. 

2 On the studies in early Athenian history made by the Greeks, see Busolt, 
G. G. I. pp. 361-370, 436, 437, and his notes passim. 

^ According to Josephus (Adv. Apion. I. 4. 21), the laws were first put on 
record by Draco. Aristotle {Respiib. Ath. c. 3) reports that the six eea-fj-od^rai 
were appointed — of course long before Draco, when the archontate became 
annual — to record the dea-fxia; but see c. 41 : r] iirl ApaKovros if § /cat vS/xovs ave- 
ypa^av TTpQiTov. The contrast is here suggested between mere records of legal 
decisions (dta/xia), and a formal code (dfir/xoi, vojxol). 

* Thuc. I. 97. Ephorus, ap. Joseph. Adv. Apion. I. 3. 16: "'E.cpopos . . . 
''EWaviKoi' eV to7s TrAeicrrois xpevSSfj.ei'ov iTriSi'iKwaiv. Diels (Rhein. Mus. 31 
[1876], p. 52) doubted whether Hellanicus reckoned by archons and treated 
of events as late as the close of the Peloponnesian war, but in this view he has 
been controverted by Wilamowitz, Hermes 11 (1876), p. 292, and Lipsius, Leipz. 
Stud. 4 (1S81), p. 153. 



The Date of Cylon. 21 

were hardly such as would commend these authors to the modern 
historian, their writings formed the basis for subsequent writers. The 
material furnished by these different historians and by the earlier 
writers of Atthides, Aristotle and his immediate followers of the Peri- 
patetic school seem to have put together, augmented by material inde- 
pendently collected, and subjected to critical examination.^ The study 
of chronology, though not reduced to a science until the time of 
Eratosthenes," had already begun in the compilation, for historical 
purposes, of lists of Olympic victors by Hippias^ of Elis, later by 
.\ristotle, by Timaeus ^ of Sicily, and others ; as also of victors at the 
Pythian games.^ Critical hsts of the Athenian archons were drawn up 
as early as the time of Demetrius of Phalerum® (b.c. 317-307 ; died 
B.C. 283), who compiled an dp^wrcov avaypaqty and wrote Trepl Trj<: 
^kOrjvridL vo/xo^ecrtas. It was not later than the middle of the fourth 
century B.C. that, following in part the example set by Hellanicus, 
there first appear writers of special histories of Attica ('Ar^tSes), 
in which legends, history, topography, literature, religion, antiquities, 
were fully treated : as Cleidemus, Androtion, and above all Philo- 

1 Cicero, De Fin. V. 4 : omnium fere civitatum . . . ab Aristotele mores insti- 
tuta disciplinas, a Theophrasto leges etiam cognovimus. Cf. Cic. De Legg. III. 6. 
14. See, for the historical-antiquarian studies of the Peripatetics (Aristotle and 
his immediate pupils) which go mainly under the name of Aristotle's TloKne'iai, 
V. Rose, Aristot, Pseudepigraphus, pp. 393-579, who, however, denies Aristotelian 
authorship, and Diimmler, Rhein. Mus. 42 (1887), pp. 179 ff. In the fragments 
of these noAireiat, authorities are sometimes quoted and controverted, and this is 
especially true of the Respub. Ath. recently discovered. The problem of the sources 
of the latter work has not yet been solved ; for some remarks on the subject, see 
Ad. Bauer, I.e., pp. 37 ff., 155; F. Cauer, Hat Aristoteles . . . geschrieben, etc., pp. 
37 ff., and The Nation, May 7, 1891 (No. 1349, p. ^^Z), etc. The independence 
of Aristotle has been emphasised by Oncken, Staatslehre d. Aristoteles, I. pp. 24, 
25, and II. p. 330. 

'2 On the chronological studies of Hellanicus and Eratosthenes, see Niese, 
Hermes, 23 (1888), pp. 81-102, and for Apollodorus, Diels, Rhein. Mus. 31 (1876), 
pp. 1-54 and Unger, Philol. 41 (1882), pp. 602 ff. ^ piut. Num. i ad fin. 

* Suid. s.V. Ti/j.aio^ .' . . eypa^l/ev . . . 'OXvfxirioi'iKas ijToi xpovLKo, irpa^iSta. 

^ By Aristotle, or his pupils (Rose) : Diog. Laert. V. 126. Aristotle's nueio^/ireai 
are cited in Plut. Sol. 1 1 and Schol. Find. 0/. 2. 87. 

^ Demetrius Phalereus was a pupil of Theophrastus; cf. Diog. Laert. V. 5, 
75, also I. 22, II. 7 (Miiller, F.H.G. II. pp. 362 ff.). His archon-list was proba- 
bly one of the authorities used by Apollodorus in preparing his chronological sys- 
tem: Diels, I.e., pp. 28, 37. 



22 JoJui Henry Wrigl'.t. 

chorus^ (fl. 306 B.C.), who paid stricter attention than heretofore to 
chronology, narrating events in annaUstic form at first according to 
kings, and afterward according to archons. Philochorus also made 
special studies of many historical subjects, such as the colonization of 
Salamis, Attic inscriptions, the Olympiads, and the like. 

If we are to judge from the use made of it by subsequent writers, 
clearly the most important work produced in these times on the early 
history of Athens, especially from the point of view of constitutional 
changes, was the treatise on the Athenian Commonwealth [y] 'KO-q- 
vaioiv TToXiTua,) ascribed by the ancients to Aristotle, and undoubtedly 
prepared, if not wholly by his own hand, with the assistance of some 
pupil acting as secretary, under his personal direction; it carries 
with it the weight of the master's authority." The recent discovery of 



1 Suid. s.v- ^iXSxopos. Cf. Boeckh, Ueber den Plan der Atthis des Philochorus 
1832 (A7. Schr. V. pp. 397 ff.). 

2 This treatise affords satisfactory internal evidence that it was composed a short 
time before Aristotle's death, between B.C. 326 and 323. We are compelled to be- 
lieve, from many indications, that it was written mainly by Aristotle, with perhaps 
the help of a pupil who prepared certain of the less important passages, the pad- 
ding, as it were; the work, since it everywhere bears evidence of the master's hand, 
was then revised, but not rewritten, by him. If we are ready to maintain — a propo- 
sition by no means self-evident — that the main body of the writings current as 
Aristotle's are the genuine works of the master in the original form, and that, 
accordingly, they are the only norm by which everything else is to be tested, we 
may still account for the " non-Aristotelian " peculiarities of the language of the 
Respub. Ath. as due, in part, to the fact that the historical sources (epigraphic and 
literary) are often given in verbal quotations, or at least in paraphrases that retain 
original forms of expressions ; due in part, perhaps, to the stylistic idiosyncrasies of 
an assistant whose work was incorporated with the master's, and, finall}', to the most 
significant fact that the work was intended not for the scientific inner circle, but 
for the "general reader," being, as it has been happily characterised by an 
English scholar, a sort of " primer of the constitutional history of Athens, and 
citizen's handbook." 

Into the question whether the treatise is in spirit and method, un-Aristotelian, 
and whether it exhibits other features impossible in a work of Aristotle's, — care- 
lessness and inaccuracy in historical research, radically inconsistent political judg- 
ments, etc. (cf. F. Cauer, Hat Aristoteles die Schrift voi7i Staate der Athener ge- 
5C/5rzV^f«, Stuttgart, 1 891; Schvarcz, Ufigarische Revue, K^x\\,\%<j\; Wu!a\,Rhein. 
Mus. 46 (1891), pp. 426-64, and several English scholars), — we cannot here 
enter. The evidence, internal and external, of essentially Aristotelian authorship 
as well as authority seems so overwhelming, that, as between the two alternatives, 



The Date of Cyloji. 23 

this work in the writing on the verso of British Museum Papyrus No. 
CXXXI., and its pubUcation by Mr. F. G. Kenyon, together with the 
attention given to it in current philological literature, and the prom- 
ise on the part of eminent specialists of critical editions, render any 
detailed account of it unnecessary here. It is enough for our pres- 
ent purposes to remark that this important and authoritative work 
bears evidence of a discriminating use of earlier sources, sources 
at once extensive and various. 

Of subsequent writers, who, drawing their knowledge from the 
authorities named above, doubtless dealt with the affair of Cylon, and 
were thus sources for the writers whose fragmentary statements have 
reached us, the names of some can be ascertained, while those of 
others have been lost. Thus Didymus Chalcenterus, contemporary of 
Cicero, besides being the source of most of the information on this 
subject given by the Scholiasts and in the lexicon of Suidas,^ was the 
author of a work Trept twi/ kiovinv ^oAwvos cited by Plutarch {^SoL i), 
on the basis of which at least cc. 19-24 of the latter's Life of Solon 
were composed. Didymus drew from Aristotle's Respub. Afh., and 
from the writers of Atthides, and must have drawn also from the 
treatise on Athenian vo^ioB^uia by Demetrius of Phalerum. Hermip- 
pus (fl. B.C. 230), pupil of Callimachus and writer of /Jtot, — drawing 
from Aristotle and other writers, — was doubtless the most important 
immediate authority of Plutarch, supplemented by matter from else- 
where : it may have been he who compiled the statements about 



one should prefer to modify his conceptions of Aristotle than reject this treatise. 
As Diels has pointedly phrased it {Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philos., 4. p. 479, quoted 
by Gildersleeve, Am. Journ. PhiloL, 12 (1891), p. 100), "Diese 'Adr]vaiwi' 
iroXireia [ist] nicht nur echt aristotelisch sondern aristotelischer als die meisten 
der uns erhaltenen Lehrbiicher an welcher sich jene Skeptiker halten." For an 
argument aiming to show that Philochorus, writing about 306 B.C., knew and 
quoted the Resptib. Ath. as Aristotle's, see my article in the Am. Journ. PhiloL, 
12 (1891), pp. 310-318. 

1 Didymus wrote extensive commentaries on Aristophanes. Cf. Mor. Schmidt, 
Didymi Chakenteri Fragm., 1854, especially pp. 246-61 and 261-99 (de Didy- 
mo interprete scenicorum poetarum scholiorumque principali fonte). Mein- 
ers (^Quaestiones ad Scholia Aristophanea Historica pe7'tinentes : Diss. Haleits., 
II, pp. 217-403) aims to demonstrate " scholia historica [for Aristophanes] in 
universum ... ex eodem fonte, Didymi commentario, fluxisse," and points out 
in detail the sources of Didymus for his statements. Rose (^Aristot. Pseudepi- 
graphus, pp. 400 ff.) sketches Didymus's relation to later learning. 



24 Jolin Henry Wright. 

Solon's political career and made the illustrative extracts from Solon's 
poems which we find in common in Plutarch and in. a secondary 
version in Diogenes Laertius (I. 2). 

Enough has been said to show that, though the fragmentary items 
of information that we possess about the affair of Cylon are found 
in writings of various kinds, which were composed several, and in some 
cases many centuries after Herodotus and Thucydides, they have the 
value of evidence much earlier, which is probably as trustworthy as that 
of the historians named. A tentative pedigree of these different par- 
cels of information, showing as far as may be their relation to each 
other and to their probable sources, might be drawn up as follows : — 

Herodotus and Thucydides are substantially independent, both 
basing their statements, probably, on distinct family and pohtical tradi- 
tions, and not on records. Aristotle, or at least the Respub. Ath. 
ascribed to him, is authority, certainly (i) for the statements about 
the trial of the Alcmeonidae and its results ; probably, (2) as we 
may infer from the language of the Heracleidean Excerpts, for some 
account of the murder of the Cylonians in which Megacles figured 
prominently; and, perhaps, (3) for certain other statements made in 
Plutarch's narrative, which will be considered below. The sources, 
in turn, of the Respub. Ath. at this point of Athenian history, it is at 
present impracticable, if not impossible, to define with any certainty. 
The Scholia on Ar. Eq. 445, in the three versions, go back to 
Didymus, ultimately to Herodotus and Thucydides, and to some 
writer on Attic history whom we cannot certainly identify : in par- 
ticular, Schol. n. and Schol. HI. are Herodotean and Thucydidean; 
while Schol. L, though briefer, has independent matter, which, par- 
tially agreeing with that given by Plutarch ^ and in the Heracleidean 
Excerpts, is doubtless taken from Aristotle's Respub. Ath., combined 
with matter from some Atthid-writer (Philochorus?). Pausanias, in 
I. 28. I, and 40. I, was perhaps drawing from Polemon;- in VH. 



1 Thus Schol. I. has KidoLS alnovs ifiaWov, and the thread (by imphcation, 
see p. II, note 1), both of which details are not found elsewhere, except in 
Plut. Sol. 12. On the other hand it says ei's t))u Kpicrtv Kare^rjcrau iu 'Apeiai Trdyq: 
instead of Plutarch's more correct ws e-yevoiTO vi^pl ras aefMuas 0faj KaraBalvovTes. 
It omits the archon's name and says nothing of the butchery of the Cylonians. 

'^ If, as is more than probable, the statue of Cylon — see below, p. 41, note 2 — 
was an a.uddrii.i.a, it was doubtless commented upon by Polemon in his great work nep) 



The Date of Cylon. 



25 



25. 2)^^'^ \\^WQ probably — at least ultimately — some Atthid-writer 
who bears a striking resemblance to one of the sources of Plutarch. 
The Epimenidean gloss of Suidas and the statement of Diogenes 
Laertius (I. 10. no) cannot be traced to their final sources; the 
former, in part at least, seems to contain the tradition followed by 
Aristotle, as to the date of Epimenides's visit ; the chronological 
datum in the latter is perhaps traceable to Apollodorus. The statements 
as to the dates of Epimenides are so contradictory, that for the present 
they may be left out of the enquiry.^ Most of Plutarch's - statements 
on the affair of Cylon are traceable to Aristotle's Respub. Ath. A 
comparison of Plutarch's account of pre-Solonian affairs with that of 
Aristotle shows, however, first, that this dependence is not immedi- 
ate,'^ and, secondly, that there is much admixture of foreign matter, 



Tijy anpoTToXscas (Strabo IX. 396). This work seems to have been confined to 
auadii/.tara, for Strabo adds rerrapa 0il3\ia avveypa^e irepl rojv ava6T]/u,dTcov Tuf iv 
aKpoir6\ii. Pausanias made abundant use of it. Cf. Paus. V. 21, i : iv aKpo- 
TToAet fxiv yap rfj 'ABrjvrjo'iv o'i re av^piavres koI oiroaa aWa, ra iravra iffrlv 6fj.oici)S 
avadiiixara. Kalkmann, Pausan. pp. 59 ff. and/aww«. 

^ See below, pp. 66-70, and notes. 

2 On Plutarch's sources in his Life of Solon, see Prinz, De Sol. Plut. fotitibus, 
Bonn, 1867; Begemann, Quaestiones Soloneae, Gottingen, 1875. Cf. Meiners, 
Diss. Hal. XI. pp. 393, 394. In Sol., cc. 19-24 are evidently from Didymus; 
perhaps also 17, 18 (first half), 25, 26, with quotations in i, 11, 14, 15, 31, 32 
(Begemann). C. 25 ad init. is distinctly Didymean (cf. Aristot. Respiib. Ath. c. 
7; Rose, Aristot. Frag. 39). 

^ At least the following passages in Plut. Sol. (chapter, page, line — Sintenis 
ed. Bibl. Teubn. 1877) bear resemblance to passages in Aristot. Respub. Ath. 
(chapter, page, line — Kenyon, 2d ed. 1891), and are evidently traceable to the 
latter work. Only once, however, is Aristotle here named i^Sol. 25, ad init.'). 



Plut. Sol. 
I., p. 154, 11. 28, 29. 

" " iSS- 2, 3- 
XII., p. 165. 16-19. 
" " 24, 25. 

XIII., p. 166. 21. 

" " " 23-26. 

" " " 31-p. 

167. 10. 

XIV., p. 167. 22, 23. 

" " " 23. 24- 

XV., p. 169. 21. 

" " " 24. 
" " " 28-31. 



Aristot. Respub. Ath. 
v., p. 14, 11. 8, 9. 

XVII., p. 45. 17- 
I., p. I. i-p. 2. 2. 
" " 2. 3,4. 
II., p. 2. 4, s. 
XIII., p. 36. 1-6. 
II., p. 2. 3-p. 3. 12. 

v., p. 15. 10, II. 

" " 13. 13- 
VI., p. 15. 15, 16. 
" " " 14. 

X., p. 27. 8-14. 



Plut. Sol. Aristot. Respub. Ath. 

XV., p. 170. 14-31. VI., p. i5. 1-19. 

XVI., p. 171. 1-3. X., p. 28. 11-17. 

" " " 17. 18 XII., p. 30. 3, 4. 

(eleg.). 

" " " 21, 22 " " 32. 14, 15. 
(eleg.). 

XVII., p. 171. 31, 32. VII., p. 16. 2i-p. 17. 1. 

XVIII., p. 172. 14-17. " " 17. 8-p. 20. 10. 

" " " 26, 27. IX., " 26. 4. 

" " " 28, 29. " " 26. lo-p. 27. I. 

" " " 31. " " 26. 4, 5. 

"173-3-3 XII.,p. 28.25-p. 29. 5. 
(eleg.) 



26 



John Henry WrigJit. 



some of which came directly or indirectly from an Atthid-writer. 
For the account of Cylon this writer may have been Philochorus ; 
for the narrative of the part taken by Epimenides it may have been 
Theopompus, possibly I'heophrastus, directly or through Ister : Plu- 
tarch appears to have been familiar with all of these writers, partially 



Plut. Sol. 
XV'III., p. 173. 10. 
XIX., p. 173. 23-27. 

" " " 28, 29. 
XX., p. 174. 20-22. 
XXV., p. 180. 16, 17. 

" " " 19, 20. 

" " " 25-29. 

" " 181. 10-24. 
XXIX., p. 183. 20, 21 



Aristot. Respub. Ath. 
IX., p. 26. I, 2. 
VIII., p. 24. 5,6. 
" " " 7,8. 

" " 25- 7-IO- 
VII., p. 17. 6, 7. 
" " " 2. 

" " " 4. 5- 
XL, p. 28. 3-11. 
XIII., p. 33. I. 



Plut. Sol. Aristot. Respub. Ath. 

XXIX., p. 185. 21-28. XIII., p. 35. 9-p. 

36.6. 
XXX., p. 186. 30-p. XIV., p. 37. 1-2. 

187. 2. 
XXX., p. 187. 3-10. '■■ " 38. 3, 4. 

" " " 18-21. " " "8-p. 39. I. 

" iSS. 5-8. " " 39. 1-5. 

XXXI., p. 188. 25-27. XVI., p. 44. 23-26. 
XXXII., p. 189. 26, 27. XIV., p. 38. 7, 8. 

A minute comparison of the wording of these parallel passages, and a considera- 
tion of the order in which they occur in the two writers, as also of extraneous 
matter inserted and of important and illuminating facts omitted, show that Plutarch 
was certainly not intimately acquainted with the Respub. Ath. The resemblances, 
the dissimilarities, and the discrepancies alike are intelligible only on the supposi- 
tion that Plutarch was transcribing from some work in which an abridgment of 
these parts of the Respub. Ath. was embodied. In transcribing from this abridgment 
he interpolates foreign matter, which is inconsistent with the unabridged Aristotle. 
The abridgment omitted the main part of cc. 2-4, also c. 13 from p. 34, 1. i to 
P- 3S> 1- 9> ^s well as many minor statements. The poetical quotations of Plutarch 
are from a different collection; such as coincide are in a different order. A reader 
of the Respub. Ath. in its original form would probably not have said eKaaros 
r&u dea-fxoderccv {Sol. 25), where the work reads ol 5' fvv4a &pxovTes, nor would he 
have turned rb yap apxaiov fi iv 'Apelcfi irdyw 0ovAt] . . . iip' iKacTTTi twv a.px<Ji>v iw 
euiavThv [Ka^icTTaJcra awfa-TeWev (to be sure, the text is uncertain) into (rv(rrricra./j.e- 
vos 5e Tr;v eV 'Apeico irdycv ^ovKrjv Sk tHiv kolt iviavrhv apxovTUiv. He would not 
have made Peisistratus active in the (earlier) Megarian war {Sol. 8) ; Aristotle had 
declared this impossible from the point of view of the age of Peisistratus (c. 17). 
At all events, if he had known that the Respub. Ath. had a contradictory state- 
ment, he would have inserted ws ivwi (pacriv as in Sol. i (cf. Respub. Ath. c. 17, 
\ripov<n ol (jxiffKovres ipcSiixivov ehai Ueiaiarparov St^Aoivoy). His evioi here, however, 
is suggested by the language not of Aristotle, but of the common sources of Aris- 
totle and his other authorities. If, as is probable, 6 6ios 'laoviav t^v 2aAa^?va 
TTpoa-nySpevae (Sol. lo) is traceable to irpiff^vTOLTriv icropwu yalav 'laovias (Respub. 
Ath. 6), the connexion is altogether too vague for a first-hand contact. Espe- 
cially instructive are Sol. cc. 18, 25, 30, when compared with the parallel passages. 

But the accurate delimitation of the relation of Plutarch to Aristotle is possible 
only after a careful examination shall have been made of all the passages in the 
Lives and Morals where the two are on common ground, and this cannot be here 
undertaken. Incidentally one might suggest that Plutarch's otherwise unac- 



The Date of Cylo7i. 27 

at least at first hand.^ All the channels through which Plutarch 
collected his varied information it is perhaps impossible to ascertain : 
certainly Hermippus and Didymus were concerned in the transmis- 
sion, and perhaps Ister. The first of the Cylonian glosses of Suidas 
i^s.v. KuAwvetov ayos) has a marked resemblance to the item from the 
Heracleidean Excerpts {i.e. ultimately Aristotle's Respub. Ath.) ; while 
the other gloss {s.v. ncpu<A^s) , rewritten in the light of the former, has 
a Thucydidean foundation which is discernible in the Schoha cited : 
thus these glosses have characteristics that suggest Didymus as one of 
the intermediate channels. Finally, the chronological item in Julius 
Africanus is ultimately to be traced to one of the "QXvjXTnovLKwv 
a.vaypa4>aL made not long after the time of Aristotle, from the authen- 
tic inscriptions preserved at Olympia.^ 



countable omission in his TJum. of the characteristic anecdote of Themistocles, 
Ephialtes, and the Areopagus {Respub. Ath. c. 25) may be explained on the 
hypothesis that the copy of Aristotle's work used by Plutarch did not contain this 
story. In Pericles 9 Aristotle is cited, but immediately there follow statements as 
to Pericles which directly contradict Aristotle (cf. Ad. Bauer, I.e., p. 77, who be- 
lieves, however, in a first-hand use of Respiib. Ath. by Plutarch). It might be 
objected that Plutarch had the original copy, while ours (British Mus. Pap. No. 
131) is an inflated and interpolated edition. I have tried to meet this objection, 
very briefly, in Am. Journ. Philol. 12 (1891), p. 317, note. 

^ Plutarch's Theseus is largely drawn from Philochorus. Gilbert, Philol. 33 
(1874), pp. 46 ff., attempts to prove that Plutarch drew from Philochorus, not at first 
hand, but through Ister, who is the source of the whole Life except cc. i, 2. Well- 
mann {De Istro Callimachio, pp. 31 ff.) has demonstrated an independent use of 
Philochorus by Plutarch, — in cc. 14, 16, 19, probably also in 24, 31, 35, 36, — as 
well as a second-hand use through Ister. Wilamov.itz {Phil. Unt. I. p. 8) claims 
for Plutarch an immediate contact with Cleidemus as well as Philochorus. Theo- 
pompus was the ultimate authority of Diog. Laert. {l-c.~) for a part, at least, of his 
account of Epimenides at Athens, which in some particulars agrees with that of 
Plutarch. Plutarch used Theopompus freely in Lysander, and elsewhere. On 
Theophrastus as a source (through Ister?), see below, p. 67, note i. 

2 The inscriptions were recorded by the Hellanodicae, evidently immediately 
on the completion of the festival : Paus. VI. 8. i says of Euanoridas, '^^vifx^voi 8' 
'EA.AaroSi/cTjs e'Ypa\f/e koI ovtos to. ovS/xara iv 'OA.u/u:ria twv veviKriKSTccu (cf. Har- 
poc. s.v. 'KWavoS'iKar . . . 'AptffTodriiuSs (prjcrL, /c.t.A. ; Rose, Aristot. Frag. 482). 
These evidently are the Elean records of Olympionicae mentioned by Pausanias 
{e.g. III. 21. i; VI. 2. 3, and 13. 10). Rutgers, Jul. Afric. p. i. Julius 
Africanus, in constructing his own list, probably made use, not of the original 
records, nor of Phlegon's list, but of a sort of chronological compendium appar- 
ently prepared by the Elean Aristodemus (fl. B.C. 150?). Cf Unger, Philol. 41 
(1882), p. 604. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus, I., 1880, p. 168. 



28 Johfi Hcjiry Wright. 

IV. 

MEGACLES AS ARCHON. 

Until within a few years historians have had no serious differ- 
ence of opinion as to the part taken by the Alcmeonidae in the 
affair of Cylon, The traditional account as given by Phitarch has 
been accepted as authentic, and the earher statements have been 
interpreted in the hght of it. But of late a difference of opinion has 
arisen, which it becomes necessary for us briefly to examine. 

There are three possibilities as to the part played by the Alcme- 
onidae in the affair. The antagonists of Cylon, to whom the guilt 
of sacrilege became attached, may have been the oiScials who prom- 
ised the Cylonians safety until the matter could be tried and then 
broke their promise : as such we might regard them either ( i ) as 
the whole body of officials, or (2) as a band headed by one or more 
of the officials. On the other hand, (3) these sacrilegious persons 
may have held no office whatever, but may have been a faction that 
ill brooked the restraint imposed by the officials, and attacked the 
party of Cylon while still under divine protection. In the first of 
the three possibilities we should be obliged (with W. Petersen) to 
consider all of the archons at this time as members of the family 
of the Alcmeonidae.^ According to the second, substantially the 
traditional, view we should have to suppose an Alcmeonid (Mega- 
cles) prominent among the archons, to whose support the members 
of his family and their sympathizers rallied, — influential to such an 
extent as to carry with him some of his fellows in office in his 
efforts to punish the daring Cylonians even by unholy means. The 
third view, by which we are to consider the Alcmeonidae as an irre- 
sponsible and rival faction, is urged by Landwehr." 

The third explanation is inconsistent with the direct language 
of Thucydides and with the most probable meaning of Herodo- 

1 W. Petersen, Hist. Gent. Attic, p. 81. 

2 Landwehr, Philol. 46 (18S6), p. 133. In Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V. p. 147, this 
writer argues that Cylon trusted to the Eupatrids to sustain him as against the 
Stoikoi, and appeals to Plut. Sol. 14, where 0/ irpoiaTd/uevot (by him identified with 
the Eupatrids) urge Solon to make himself tyrant. He might also have cited one 
of the Thucydidean meanings of Svi'aT6s, used of Cylon (I. 126), viz. aristocratic 
opponents of the people. But these are hardly sufficient grounds. 



The Date of Cylon. 2C) 

tus : in both of these writers the blame rests upon certain persons 
who give to the Cylonians a promise, which is broken. Herodotus 
calls these persons Trpi^rane? twv vavKpdpoiv. Thucydides, however, 
having said that the conduct of the siege had been committed to oi 
cvvea apxovre?, adds, after an interval, that they, — 06 tu)v ^AO-qvamv 
€7riTerpa/x/AeVot rr]v (pvXaKrjv,^ — when they saw the Cylonians perishing 
in the temple, lifted them up from their suppliant position with a 
promise that they should receive no harm (e'^' <S fxrjSev KaKov 
TroLy]aova-i) , led them off, and slew them (dyayovres aTriKTeivav) . 
Herodotus asserts that the Trpuravies twv vavKpdpoyv lifted up the 
suppliants upon the promise that they should not be slain (inrey- 
yvov<i 7r\r]v Oavdrov) ; the blame of the murder, however, he adds, 
is attached to the Alcmeonidae ; he does not, it is true, dis- 
tinctly identify, as does Thucydides, the murderers with those who 
gave the promise. This failure is to be most rationally explained 
it seems to me, from some such considerations as the following : 
Herodotus, for one reason or another,^ has always a good word 
for the Alcmeonidae, and appears ready to explain away certain 
objectionable stories told of them. The affair of Cylon was an all- 
important episode in the traditions of the family. It seems to be 
highly probable that the family traditions preserved the fact^ that 
at the time of the affair one of their number was chief official of the 



1 This statement of Thucydides is abbreviated in Schol. I. Ar. £g. 445 into the 
unmeaning ol ' Ad-nvaloi,, 

■^ The glories of the family are celebrated in Herod. VI. 121-131, from Mega- 
cles, the father of Alcmeon, down to Pericles : the Alcmeonidae freed Athens far 
more than even Harmodius and Aristogeiton (VI. 123); it is unlikely that they 
were traitorously disposed toward Athens at the time of Marathon (VI. 115, 121). 
They are ivayies (I. 61; cf. V. 70, 71); in exile because of Peisistratus (I. 64); 
later, while still in exile because of the Peisistratidae, after a defeat at Leipsy- 
drium, they built the temple at Delphi (V. 62) ; at last they are restored to their 
home (V. 69-73), though afterward, about 490 B.C., they are under a cloud 
(Herod. VI. 115, and Pind. Pyih. 7. 15). The ostracism of Megacles III., nephew 
of Cleisthenes, as an upholder of the Peisistratidae, not long after the battle of 
Marathon, attested by Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 22, is new evidence on this last 
point; see p. 46, note. 

3 The family tradition seems also to have been preserved by the writer who 
gives {ap. Plut. Sol. 12) the distinctly Alcmeonidean explanation and justifica- 
tion of the conduct of Megacles and his associates, viz. that the breaking of the 
thread which connected the suppliants with the statue of Athena implied that the 
goddess rejected such a relation. Grote, Hist. Greece, HI. p. 83 and note. 



30 John Henry WrigJit. 

state, holding the position of archon, one of the board of nine chief 
magistrates known collectively in the fifth century as oi apxavre?, and 
that he was the head of an ardent faction.-^ There is good reason 
for maintaining that these nine officers were known at the time of the 
affair of Cylon, not as ol apyovTcs, but as ot Trpvravu^ (Ion. Tr/Durdvtes) .^ 



^ Herodotus mentions Athenian archons as such only once (VIII. 51. 5, Calli- 
ades, archon 480/79 B.C.), while Thucydides does frequently; thus Herodotus 
does not mention the fact that Solon was archon, nor Hippocleides, nor Isagoras, 
though he names the men, and though the election of the latter to the archonship 
in 508/7 B.C. was an indication of the success of his faction. The argument 
a silentio has very little weight when we are dealing with Herodotus's treatment 
of political history. 

^ It is highly probable that up to the time of Solon the nine higher magistrates 
were called rrpvTdveis, '/oj'emen,' ' chiefs,' and that at their head stood the $aat- 
Aevs. After Solon, under whom the board was more definitely organized and unified 
(Aristot. Respub. Ath. cc. 3, 8; Diog. Laert. I. 2. 58, quoting Apollodorus, who 
probably here drew from Demetr. Phal. Trep^ vo/xodea-ias}, and the precedence of 
the ^pxcji' over the ^aci^^evs had become an established fact, the whole board 
received the name of ol iwea apxavres. The term Trpyrdvus was thereupon 
technically appropriated by the chiefs of the naucraries, and continued to be so 
used until the time of Cleisthenes. Later, when the naucraries had ceased to 
exist in their ancient form, the term passed over to the chiefs, for the time being, 
of the newly organized Senate, acquiring the sense in which the word is most 
familiar to the student of Athenian history. 

The arguments urged iti support of the proposition that the pre-Solonian 
archons were called irpwdvus may be summed up (mainly after Busolt) as follows : 
(i) in post-Solonian times the fees of the archons' courts were called irpvTave'ia, 
a use of language that cannot be explained except as a survival from pre-Solonian 
times. (2) In the amnesty-law of Solon (Plut. Sol. 19), three courts are men- 
tioned : that of the Areopagus, that of the Ephetae, and that ere Trpvravelov (see 
above, p. 11, note 4). From Aristot. Respub. Ath, c. 3, pp. 6, 7 (hitherto known 
only in Lex. Segiier. p. 449, 17 = Suid. s.v. tpxovns oi ivvia. rives) we learn that 
the so-called archons held courts; hence e« frpuTavelou (— ex. tov -rrpvTdveais, i.e. 
the later archon, if not e/c -rwy TrpvTdveaiv : Plut. Sol. i<^adfin. explains by -KpvTdvf^is; 
cf. Schomann, ib. p. 460) in this law must have referred to the archon's court, if 
not to the archons' court. The original language of Aristotle, now happily jrecov- 
ered, does not justify us in maintaining that the archons might not, under certain cir- 
cumstances, pass and execute judgment collectively, though they commonly exer- 
cised independent jurisdiction. Cf. Meier and Schomann, Att. Proc. I. p. 15, note 
21 (Lipsius). (3) Thuc. (I. 126) informs us that the — so-called — archons had 
supreme direction of the state in the time of Cylon (rt^re). The ancient home 
and headquarters of the government (ras apxoj • • • TrpvTaveTov, Thuc. II. 15) was 
the Prytaneum. (4) In many Asiatic Ionian colonies a wpiiTavis followed the 



The Date of Cyloii. 31 

Now the tradition also handed down the fact that TrpvTciveis made and 
broke the promise to the Cylonians. Herodotus, we are to suppose, 
was not aware of the identity of the TrpuTavets and what in his day 
were called ajoxovres : he held them to be different officials ; hence, 
on hearing or reading that the Trpvravcts were the responsible persons, 
and knowing that the Alcmeonidae, one or more of them, were 
apxovTes at the time, he inferred that the blame for the murder of 
the Cylonians was wrongly attached to the Alcmeonidae. The only 
7rpvTdvt€<s in Attic history that he knew about were the irpvTavw; twv 
vavKpdpwv : hence he very naturally wrote Trpurai/tes roiv vavKpdpaiv, infer- 
ring that these officials were the guilty party, not the Alcmeonidean 
apxovTC';} Had he known that TrpvTdvLes was but the pre-Solonian 



^acrtXevs (Herod. I. 147), and the chief official for a long time afterward contin- 
ued to retain this designation; e.g. in Miletus (Aristot. Fo/. VIII. (V.) 4. 5, p. I305'» 
18), Ephesus (C./.G. 2955), etc. The expression Tvpiravis is often used for 
fiatriKfiis (Blass, Hermes, 13 [1878], p. 386). The chief official would thus be 
known both as BacriAeus and as trpiiTavts. Of Epaenetus, Attic archon in B.C. 636, 
pseud.-Hippys of Rhegium (Miiller, F. H. G. II. p. 14) wrote eVl ^aa-iXeois 'Eirat- 
verou. (5) Suid.J.z'. irpiiravis . . . paatAex'is, apx'^''? "^■''■•'^•i is probably too vague to 
be in evidence for the practice in Athens. On the whole subject, cf. Busolt, 
G. G. I. pp. 40S, 409. 

The recently discovered Respub. Ath. does not seem, on first examination, dis- 
tinctly to bear out this theory, though there is nothing in the treatise that tells 
decidedly against it except that, if the theory be correct, we must admit that Aris- 
totle was unacquainted with the facts. One or two arguments, however, are sug- 
gested from the historical conditions set forth in the work itself: viz. (6) the 
archon's official residence, or " office," was the Prytaneum (c. 3) ; the Pole- 
march's, — anciently, — the Polemarcheum; that of the Thesmothetae, the Thes- 
motheteum. As the name of the officer in the two latter cases suggested that of 
the place of his activity, so in the former, Prytaneum must have arisen from 
■t!pvrtxvi.s (= Spxooi/). (7) In c. 4 occur these words: tovs jxkv Ivvia Apxapras . . . 
ffTparrjyovs 5e koI litwapxovs . . . tovs TrpvTavus Kal tovs (XTpaTriyovs Koi tovs 
iTTTrdpxovs. The text as it stands is corrupt, and the point must not be pressed; 
but does not this collocation suggest that, in the source, at least, of this passage, 
Toiis irpvTdveis and tovs ivvea apxovTas were identical in meaning? Later on in 
the work, of course, Trpvrdveis is used in its fifth century sense (cc. 29, 43). 

1 Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 8 seems to show that the institution of the vavKpapiai' 
was pre-Solonian, though the reorganization of the system is distinctly Solonian. 
Hence Gilbert's contention {Jahrb. f. Philol. 11 1 [1875], pp. 9-20) that both 
the institution and the name begin with Solon (Phot. s.v. vavicpapia) is futile. 
Schomann {Jahrb. f. Fhilol. in [1875], p. 454) ^^"^ others — see Busolt, G. G. 



32 John Henry Wright. 

name for the apxovTes, such an inference would not have been made, 
and the passage in Herodotus would then have perfectly agreed with 
that of Thucydides/ as also with the statements of the other writer or 



I. p. 502 — maintain that the vavKpapiai were established toward the end of the 
seventh century B.C., i.e. a short time before Solon, to extend the Attic navy and 
to protect the newly developing merchant marine; Solon merely gives the insti- 
tution a more definite organization; Schomann's conclusions are doubtless sound, 
though his argument from the use of e/c irpuTaveiov {ib. p. 460; cf. Attischer 
Process, I. p. 25 [Lipsius]) may be unsatisfactory. 

1 The language of Herodotus is, on the face of it, difficult to reconcile with 
that of Thucydides : the former puts the blame on one set of officials, the latter 
on another. There are several ways of accounting for this difference; the one 
suggested above seems to me on the whole the most probable. We might (A) 
regard the passage in Herodotus as textually unsound, i.e. that tSiv vavKpdp<j:v is an 
interpolation. But the source of Harpocration s.v. vavKpo-putd evidently had a text 
with rwv vavKpdpoii', as is shown by the attempt to explain the word as equivalent 
to &pxoi'T€s {vavKpipovs yap to iraAathv rovs &pxovTas eXeyov &)s nal ev Trj 4 'Hpo- 
56tou StjXo?). Accepting the text, then, as substantially sound, we may (B) explain 
the language in one of three ways: either (a), as does Harpoc. s.v. uavKpapiKa, 
by taking vavKp<ypoi as another name for ' archon.' This is extremely improbable, 
when we regard the meanings given to the word, and the history and nature of 
the institution of naucraries. This explanation is undoubtedly merely an attempt 
to reconcile the language of Herodotus with that of Thucydides. It is interesting 
as perhaps an early — Didymean? — attempt. Or (^b) we may hold that Herodo- 
tus is giving the actual facts in the case, i.e. that certain officials known as pry- 
tans of the naucraries did have a part, and a very responsible part, in the Cylonian 
sacrilege. This again may be taken in one of two ways : either (a) there is no 
essential contradiction between Herodotus and Thucydides; there were two sets 
of officials concerned, the pry tans of the naucraries and the archons; the former 
may be regarded either (a') as executive officers acting under the order of their 
superiors, or (;3') the local leaders (I'avKpdpovs = STj^apxous) who came with 
their people iic tuv aypHv and subsequently handed over the conduct of affairs 
to the archons : Herodotus — following Alcmeonidean tradition — emphasizes the 
part taken by the prytans; Thucydides, that of the archons. Thucydides thinks 
Herodotus mistaken, and corrects him. Or (0) we may hold that there were 
two accounts of the affair, one of which made the archons responsible, — followed 
by Thucydides, and the other the prytans of the naucraries, — followed by Herodo- 
tus. Or finally (c) we may explain the matter as given above, viz. that we have 
here not an exact statement of the facts (tcSi/ vavKpdpwv), but only a partially 
exact statement {irpuTduns), vitiated by the addition, made with honest intent, 
of an explanation {ruv vavKpdpaiv') which, though supposed to throw light on the 
matter, thoroughly darkens it. We have thus to do with a mental interpolation 
on the part of Herodotus. 



The Date of Cylon. 33 

writers from whom Plutarch and Pausanias drew. In the hght of 
these considerations, to suppose the Alcmeonidae to have had no 
connexion whatever, as ofificials, with the Cylonian affair is distinctly 
to discredit the most obvious meaning of our best sources, and is an 
arbitrary procedure for which there is no sufficient justification.'^ 

If, now, the Alcmeonidae were officials at the time, it remains to 
be determined whether the whole body of archons was made up 
of Alcmeonidae, or whether only the leading archon was an Alc- 
meonid supported by his family and friends. The objections to the 
former view q,re mainly a priori. It seems quite unlikely that one 
family should have gained such power in Athens at this time of 
factional and family feuds as to obtain possession of all of the archon- 
ships. Not many years later we find that competition for these 
offices is so strong that candidates are elected even outside of the 
privileged class, and that a compromise is effected by which each of 
the three classes shall be duly represented. Again : the Cylonians 
received a promise of trial ; the court before which the survivors were 
tried — and by which they were condemned to exile, the penalty 
of death having been made impossible by the promise of the officials 
— was undoubtedly that of the Prytaneium. This court was distinctly 
the archon's court, if not — as is more likely — the court of the col- 
lege of archons.^ Acting together in promising a fair trial, the archons 
would have sat together in judgment. Now it is extremely improba- 
ble that the judges of the survivors in this cause could have been none 
other than the murderers of the friends of the survivors ; it is there- 
fore next to impossible that all of the archons could have been Alc- 



Of the possible explanations summarized above, A is clearly most improbable; 
B a is likewise improbable; V> b a (a', yS') and ^ have each their advocates, 
vi'hom we need not here enumerate. The greater probability of B <r must be 
judged from the available evidence, which, so far as I know, is here presented in 
full in the text, or in the notes, though very briefly. 

If the conclusion B t be correct, the prytans of the naucraries disappear wholly 
from the scene of the Cylonian affair, and all inferences as to their duties and 
functions, based on their supposed connexion with it, lose their foundation. In 
all its essential features, the story as given in our various accounts now becomes 
clear, and thoroughly consistent with itself. 

^ For an additional, though hardly probable argument, based on the presence 
of a statue of Cylon in the acropolis, see below, p. 41, note 2. 

^ See above, p. 11, note 4, and p. 30, note 2. 



34 JoJm Henry Wright. 

meonidae, though not at all unlikely that one or more of them may 
have belonged to the family. 

Having now shown that one or more of the Alcmeonidae were 
connected, as officials, with the suppression of the Cylonian attempt, 
and tainted by the sacrilege involved not only in the murder of 
suppliants before Athena, but also in the violation of a solemn prom- 
ise, let us briefly examine the evidence that tends to show that 
Megacles the Alcmeonid was archon at the time of the affair. 

The first appearance ^ of the name Megacles is in the Heracleidean 
Excerpts (ot ii^^rh. Meya/cAeovs) . The dependence of these Excerpts 
upon Aristotle's Respiib. Ath. has been too often proved to require 
demonstration here." There is, therefore, a strong presumption in 
favor of the view that in the introductory account in the Respub. Ath. 
mention was made of Megacles, if not as an archon, at least as the 
leader of the anti-Cylonian party. This presumption is made more 
certain when we bear in mind the thorough familiarity with the family 
of the Alcmeonidae apparent in this treatise, as well as the nature of 
the information given in the earlier or historical portion of it (cc. i- 
41). Here several members of the family are not only mentioned, 
but mentioned in such a way as to show that the writer, or at all 
events his authorities, had them distinctly differentiated in mind. The 
first person named in this treatise with his parentage affixed is Mega- 
cles, son of Alcmeon, the leader of the Parali (c. 13) ; this state- 
ment about the parentage, not made in the case of his rivals, would 
seem to show one of two things, if not both : either that the father 
Alcmeon had been mentioned in an earher portion of the account, or 
that a Megacles had been mentioned earlier, from whom the later 
Megacles (his grandson) was to be distinguished by the addition of 
his father's name. The adoption of the latter alternative confirms us 
in our contention that the Megacles of the affair of Cylon was named 
in the Respub. Ath. ; the adoption of the former would add another 
bit of evidence in proof of the statement that the Alcmeonidae 
figured largely in this work.^ 



^ The absence of the name in Herodotus and Thucydides need not awaken 
suspicion; the important thing in the story, told only as an episode, is the family 
taint, not the guilt of the original offender. As we have noted already, even 
Thucydides does not mention such memorable names as Solon and Cleisthenes. 

^ See above, p. 15, note 2. 

3 Perhaps Aristotle was here merely transcribing Herodotus's ^iyxK\ios tov 



The Date of Cylon. 35 

That Megacles was named in the Respub. Ath. can hardly be 
disputed ; but that there was a distinct statement in the same 
work that he was archon is not capable of demonstration. This 
is, however, extremely probable, since archons are again and again 
mentioned by name in the treatise, the oldest being Aristaechmus, in 
whose archonship the reforms of Draco were proposed (c. 4). The 
absence of such an assertion in the Heracleidean Excerpts and in the 
glosses of Suidas means nothing ; all these statements are abridgments 
of abridgments, and it was perhaps regarded as unnecessary to retain 
an item which would be taken for granted. The presence of this 
statement in Plutarch — and, by inference, in the work from which 
Pausanias drew — would show simply that Plutarch had some au- 
thority for it, not necessarily that of the Respub. Ath. ; for, though we 
may hold that much in Plutarch is traceable to this work, most of it 
seems to have come so indirectly and with so much admixture of other 
m.aterial, that it is hazardous to quote Plutarch, when unsupported, 
as authority for Aristotle. That, however, Plutarch did draw from 
some good authority in which the statement was made that Megacles 
was archon, is more than probable ; the concurrence, together with 
the essential independence, of the items given in Schol. I. Ar. Eq, 
445, in Paus. VII. 25. 3, in Suidas s.vv. KDAwvaoi/ ayos and Ile/atKAiJs, 
and in Plut. Sol. 12, point to some writer or writers of a good period, 
possibly only Aristotle,^ but probably also an Atthid-writer, by whom 



'AXK/xeafos (I. 59). Still, even on this supposition, it is significant that he did not 
also transcribe 'Apto-ToAatSfoj with AvKovpyov. The Alcmeonidae interested him. 
Other instances, in the Respub. Ath., of mentions of parentage are : Aristeides 
(son of Lysimachus, cc. 22, 23); Cimon (Miltiades, c. 26); Cleon (Cleaenetus, 
c. 28) ; Ephialtes (Sophonides, c. 25); Hipparchus (Charmus, c. 22) ; Isagoras 
(Teisander, c. 20); Megacles (Hippocrates, c. 22); Themistocles (Neocles, c. 
23); Theramenes (Hagnon, c. 28); Xanthippus (Ariphron, c. 22). Probably 
also Pythodorus (c. 29); following Diog. Laert. IX. 8. 54, I proposed to[C 
noAu^rjjAou (^Nation, No. 1349, p. 384), but now adopt the 'EttiCtjAou of Kaibel- 
Wilamowitz, who refer to Athen. Mittlieil. 14 (1889), p. 398. 

1 That Aristotle could hardly have been the only writer from whom Plutarch 
drew is shown by the language of Pausanias (VII. 25. 3), which, as the context 
shows, though dealing with the same subject, treats it after the fashion of an 
Atthid-writer, and is thus probably drawn from an Atthid-writer (through Pole- 
mon or Ister?) : Philochorus was the favorite source for these later writers. It is, 
however, not impossible that the Aristotelian element in Plutarch's account of the 



36 JoJin Henry Wright. . 

the fact that Megacles was archon was distinctly expressed. From 
Plutarch's well-known partiality for Philochorus, who we know treated 
Attic history according to archons/ it is perhaps safe to infer that 
this famous writer, in the third book of whose Atthis the affair of Cy- 
lon was doubtless mentioned, was the source that we desire. At all 
events, we have fourth century B.C. evidence (Aristotle's Resptib. Ath.) 
for the name of Megacles as that of the leader in the anti-Cylonian 
movement ; we have fifth century B.C. evidence (Thucydides) that 
the archons, in part at least, were of the anti-Cylonian faction ; we 
have the earliest possible evidence (Herodotus, though apparently 
not the much earlier Solonian amnesty-law) that the Alcmeonidae were 
held responsible and punished for the Cylonian sacrilege. In the light 
of this evidence, is it not safe to assume that at the time of the Cylo- 
nian attempt Megacles was one of the prominent officials, probably 
the archon par excellence ? 



affair of Cylon (though probably not of Solon's activity) may have reached Plu- 
tarch through Philochorus. A fairly clear case of such transmission is found in 
Plut. Them. 10 : cf. my article in Am. Joia-n. Philol. 12 (1891), pp. 313 ff. 

1 Cf. Schol. Luc. Tiin. 30 (pp. 47, 48 Jacobitz) : k-Ki<sry\ Se (KAe'coi') /cal t^ vpb% 
AaKedaifioviovs elpr]vr] ws ^i\6xopos, tt poff 6 e I s &pxovra Kijdvvov, Kal 'ApicrTOTeAris. 
Suid. s.v. eypa^ev 'ArOi^os 0t0\ia cC ' Trepiexet §e ras ' Adr)vaiwv Trpd^eis koI 
<^Toi)s'^ ^a(n\e7s Kal dpxopras ecus 'Avrtoxov rov re^evralov. Cf. also Wiiller, 
F.H.G. I. Frag. 97 (Schol. Ar. Pnc. 605), eirl TivQo^dipoxi (Mss. 0eo5c^/3ou) ; 108 
(Schol. Ar. /'^iT. 466), eVi 'AXicalov (Mss. 'AKKfiaioiuos); 107 (Schol. Ar. Vesp. 
210), €7rl 'Iffdpxov, etc. On the annalistic form adopted by the Atthid-writers, see 
Dion. Hal. An/. I. 8: also Usener, Jahrb. f. Philol. 103 (1871), pp. 31 1 fif., and 
Busolt, G. G. I. p. 363, note 4. Didymus made abundant use of Philochorus; cf. 
M.e.mexs, Diss. Ualen. 11. pp. 336-72, who demonstrates more than two dozen 
citations in the historical Scholia on Aristophanes, Marcellinus Thuc. 32, and 
Harpocration s.v. inpia-Toixoi also give us Didymean citations from Philochorus. 
Possibly in the otherwise unknown ^t\oK\eovs riv6s, cited by Plutarch (^Sol, i) 
as quoted by Didymus, we are to see an ancient corruption of iiKoxopov. 



The Date of Cylon. 37 

V. 

CYLON A YOUNG MAN. 

The more important arguments upon which the claim for an 
early date for Cylon is based, drawn from the direct language of the 
sources, are concerned with the age of Cylon at the time of his 
attempt to possess the acropolis. 

The earliest and in fact the only writer who gives any information 
on this point is Herodotus (V. 71), in these words : olro'i inl rvpav- 
vl8l iKOfiTjore, Trpocnroi-qaajx^voi Se kraiprji-qv tu)v r/AiKtwrewi', KaraXajSeiv 
T^v aKpoTToXiv ineipyOr]. The word of especial signiiicance in this 
passage is •^AtKtoJTat, which though not found elsewhere in Herodotus 
is a word of good classical usage. It means ' age-mates,' ' persons 
of the same age,' but as actually used it seems to be restricted almost 
wholly to the young and to the old.^ When used of combinations 
for political purposes, it can have reference only to leagues of youth- 
ful comrades and associates. There would be a manifest absurdity 
in supposing that a combination of middle-aged men was here meant ; 
the fact of age is not dwelt upon in speaking of men in middle life : 
this is a feature that impresses itself upon the attention only when 
persons at the extremes of age are spoken of. Still more absurd 
would it be to suppose that Herodotus here meant a combination of 
aged men. Herodotus's own use of language makes it very clear 
that eraiprjirjv twv rjXLKtwrewv' refers to a company of young men,^ 



1 The gloss of Suid. s.v. rjAiKiwTo.i • (rv^irpaKropes does not give the classical 
usage. 

^ Lange's emendation of TjXiKiccTfwv to iTwv or (xuverciv {De Ephet. fiom. cornm., 
Leipsic, 1873, pp. 22, 23) is wholly unnecessary. Cf. Schcimann, yrf/^r^./. Philol. 
Ill (1875), p. 449; also Scholl, quoted ib. p. 177. 

^ In the absence of an adequate lexicographical index to Herodotus, the fol- 
lowing summary of uses may be helpful (Stein's text) : — 

rj\tKiwT-ns is not elsewhere found in Herod., but its meaning may be inferred 
from the uses of rjAiKia and its cognates. riXuda (l) 'time of life,' 'age,' ae- 
tas : Trjv avTT]u T}\iKir\v (exw, ex*"'''''**) ix'^^'^'^^' ^^^ dative), HI. 16, HI. 14; 
Kar TjAiKiTjy re Kal (piXSrrira, I. 172; vios . . ■ riXiKi-qv, IH. 134, VI. 43; of old 
age, ovpos Se tjAikItis . . . aWos ovSsis, I. 216; es rSSe rjAtKLTis ifiKovTa, VII. 38: 
with number of years, ihv irewu oktoii ^ ivvea 7i\iK'n)v, V. 51; TjMKi-qv . . . kirra- 
KaiSsKa . . . yeyoviis, III. ^O; T]KiKii)v es e^Kocri . . . tna, I. 209. (2) Of im- 



38 JoJui Henry Wright. 

and this is sustained, not only by the striking words iKOfirjcre errt 
TvpavvcSL, — when Herodotus speaks of the ambition of the mature 
PeisistratUS he says Kara'^povy'jcra? ryv rvpavviSa (I. 59; cf. I. 66), — 
but also by the context : the deed is portrayed — briefly, to be sure, 



pulses and feelings peculiar or proper to one's years: (of 'youthful' passion), 
/J,}] irdvTa rjAiKiri Kal Bufxr!} iirlTpaTre III. 36 and elKe tj? ^^KiKiri, VII. 18; (of an old 
man), V. 19. For III. 36, cf vidvias in lexx. (3) 'Time,' 'tiaioZov . . . koX 
"OfirjpQv riXiKiriu TiTpaKoaioLcn ereat SoKew jxiu TrpeaPvTf'povs yev^aOai, II. 53 » 
'period,' ravra rjAiKiriv eti] ttv icara Adioy, V. 59; 'S.Ka'ios . . . riMKiriv hot Olli- 
irovv, V. 60; Tavra wph rrjs netcncrrpaTOv ^Aikitjs eyeutTo, Y. 7I; (4) 'proper 
age for,' ov yap eixe ttui 7]MKirjv ffTpaTevecrdai, I. 129. In III. 16, rrjv avrrfu 
il\iK'n]v carries also with it the idea of size. As ' age ' in English connotes, 
when used alone, ' old ' age, so ^Ai/cm to the Greeks suggested ' youth,' ' prime.' 

Light on the meaning of ^Ai/ctwrat comes also from the cognates : tZv 7]\lkwv 
. , . irpaiTos, I. 34; '^'^^ T)\iKCa!V avSpfioTaTCf, I. 1 23; 01 6/j.rihtKes, I. 99. TjXiKiairai 
is thus equivalent to ol rriv avrrju yALKiriv tx"^'''^^ (Suid. rj\iKtcvTris ' rfjs avTTJs 
fj.fT€(rxVK^^ ^Aid-ias). Such persons are united in interests and tastes (vyAi/ca yap 6 
iraAaibs \6yos repireiv Thv 'i']\iKa, Plat. F/iaedr. 240 c) as well as in years. That 
the word does not elsewhere occur in Herodotus should not arouse suspicion; 
he had several ways of expressing the idea (see examples above). It frequently 
occurs in Plato (cf. Ast, Lex. s.v.), and in the orators in the sense used by Herod- 
otus. 

eTatprjlr^v is another ciira^ Xeyofxevov in Plerodotus; its meaning, however, is 
clear from passages where the concrete word is used : kralpos, sing. ' comrade,' masc. 
III. 14 (^bis),Yl. 62 iter'); fem. II. 134 (of Rhodope, eralprjs yvvaiKos, i.e. 
' hetaera') ; plu. masc. only III. 125 (ay6ixevos . . . woWovs r&v eraipwv^ fem. III. 
51, and (of the ' hetaerae ' of Naucratis) II. 135. Add twv avveTaipoiv, VII. 193 
(of Jason and his comrades on the Argo) ; Ai'a . . . kraipijwv, I. 44 {bis) and the 
verb irpoaeraipiaacrdai, III. 70 {bis) ; wpoaeTaiplCfrat, V, 66 (Cleisthenes and the 
Athenian Sfj/xos). If there were more examples preserving the same proportions, 
one might infer that kraip-nit} (or ffweraipoi) was Herodotus's plural for eraipos. 
At all events, kraLpriirj rwv ■ijAiKiccTeup, as used by Plerodotus, is the exact equiv- 
alent of ^AjKi&JTai ical kralpoi (Plat. Symp. 183 c). 

Finally, one might be tempted to suppose that Herod., using the language of 
the Attic Greeks, when political eTaipuai prevailed (Vischer, A7. Schriftett, I. pp. 
153-204, especially p. 156), intended to describe Cylon's band as a club of a 
similar sort (cf Aristot. Respzib. Ath. c. 20, ^TTco/isVoj It rais Iraipeiau o KAeta^e- 
vTjr, following Ilerod. V. 66, but not verbatim). This is possible, but hardly 
probable. Even if this had been his meaning, he would have been guilty of an 
anachronism. Solon's crvvodoL {Frag. 4. 22; cf. Plato, Theaet. 173 D, airovZoX 
5e eraipiwv ctt' apxas Kal avi^oSoi Kal 5€7in'a k.t.\.), to which appeal might be 
made, probably does not refer to such combinations as that of Cylon, young 
revolutionary spirits aided by foreign mercenaries, but rather to the factional 



The Date of Cylon. 39 

but vividly and with no uncertain lines — as a deed of youthful and 
heedless daring and violence. 

Now we know that Cylon was winner in the Stao^Aos at Olympia in 
640 B.C. The nature of this contest was such that only men in the 
flower and vigor of young manhood could participate in it ; at this 
time, then, Cylon must have been still a young man, certainly not 
above thirty years of age, and probably younger. In twenty or more 
years after 640 B.C., i.e. after 620 B.C., language such as Herodotus 
uses could not have been applied to him. At the time of his attempt 
to make himself tyrant of Athens he certainly cannot have been over 
forty years of age — in all probability he was much younger ; hence 
this episode in his life must have taken place before 621 B.C. (Draco's 
legislation), and probably much nearer 628 B.C., or even 636 B.C., 
than 621 B.C. 

The only objections that can be offered to this reasoning must be 
based either on a supposed inaccuracy in the language of Herodotus, 



combinations of families and their adherents ('AA/c^ewyiSat Ka\ ol cvaraatieTai, 
Herod. V. 70) against each other, which were a prominent feature of the times 
(^ffrdaiv e/jLcpvAov, Frag. 4- 19; cf. Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 13). 

That the language of Herodotus would have been unusual, to say the least, 
had he intended here to describe the attempt of a political faction led by a man 
of mature years, must be evident. That this cannot have been his meaning will 
be clear from a consideration of the several ways in which he speaks of such 
attempts. The members of parties of this sort are called o-Tan-iaJTat (the occasion 
of the formation of (TTao-eis is that an ambitious man wishes to become K6pv<paios, 
in. 82), I. 59, 173; III. 83, 144; V. 36, 72 (of Isagoras and his men), 70 (ad- 
herents of Alcmeonidae, under Cleisthenes, reaching back to Cylon's time) ; VIII, 
132. Especially significant is I. 59, Karacppourjcras r)]v rvpavviSa ijyeipe rpiTT]v 
(Xraffiv, crvWe^as Se o-racriwras k.t.A. (of Peisistratus) . In I. 96 Deioces, aviip 
. . . (TO(phs . . . ipacrBels rvpavviSos iTvoiee TolaSe, and in V. 46 Euryleon, rvpavvidi eTre- 
XeipTjae "XeXiuovuTos (/cot efxovudpxv^^ XP°''°'^ ^''^^ bxiyov; his fate, however, has 
a suggestive resemblance to that of the Cylonians: ol ydp fxiv ^eKivoixriot iirava- 
(TTavTis aireKTiivav KaTacpuyovra eVi Aibs ayopalov ^wjxov). These passages raise 
the strong presumption that if Herodotus had meant by the attempt of Cylon 
an affair like those of Peisistratus, Deioces, or Euryleon, he would have used 
different language. The meaning of the word e/c^^/xTjas (etti rvpawi^i) as describ- 
ing the feeling more natural for a youth (Stein, ap. Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 505, 
note 2) cannot be pressed; for though the word in this sense is an ctTraJ Xeyofievov 
in Herodotus, — it occurs several times in a literal sense: e.g. I. 195; II. 36; IV. 
168, 180, 191, — it is not much stronger than the word (pacrdeis used of the sage 
Deioces's feeling. 



40 . John Henry Wright. 

or on a supposed untrustvvorthiness of the date of Cylon's Olympic 
victory. As to this second point, it may be said that^ if any matters 
in Greek chronology rest on a secure basis, the best attested are the 
dates of Olympic victors, after those records were begun ; and there 
is no reason, from the records, why this date of Cylon's victory 
should be regarded with suspicion. Indeed, if the date were a forged 
date, inserted in the lists without authority, we should have looked 
for it somewhat later ; Solon was supposed to have been concerned 
with the efforts to purify the city of the Cylonian sacrilege, and an 
inventor of this date would have placed it much nearer Solon's time 
than 640 B.C. 

It must be plain to every reader of the passage from Herodotus 
that there was no uncertainty in the historian's mind as to the nature 
of the attempt of Cylon, and as to the age of the young adventurers. 
Where did he gain this impression ? The tradition of the affair, in 
all its essential features, was still definite and clear among the 
Alcmeonidae when Herodotus visited Athens and heard tales of the 
house from them or their sympathizers : no story could be more 
vivid in all its details than that of the youthful, heedless adventurer, 
ill-prepared, speedily overwhelmed, his company either slain or 
exiled. Alcmeonidae at least would never have transformed, in 
their traditions, a powerful enemy, in the maturity of his strength, 
into a daring, foolish boy. Later on some of these features, the more 
picturesque as contrasted with the more essential, faded from the 
historical consciousness. 

There is nothing whatever in any of the other authorities that 
makes our inferences as to Cylon's age improbable. It is true that 
in none of the accounts is the fact distinctly stated that Cylon was 
a young man, and it may be claimed that had this been the case, it 
would have been dwelt upon, especially by Thucydides, whose narra- 
tive is very explicit. It is noteworthy, however, that in the earliest 
of the authorities this aspect of the matter is made clear ; in the sub- 
sequent accounts other features of the interesting incident attracted 
attention and were emphasized. 

In his walk upon the acropolis of Athens, Pausanias ^ saw, evidently 



^ Paus. I. 28. I. It makes no difference, for our purpose, whether Pausanias saw 
the statue himself, or merely read about it in his authority. The explicit and 



TJie Date of Cylon. 41 

near the great Athena TrvXat/xaxos, a statue of Cylon, the presence of 
which in that place — the statue of a man who had attempted to 
make himself tyrant — was a mystery to him. The explanation which 
he suggests, though undoubtedly an incorrect one, carries with it 
a bit of information that bears upon the matter of the age of Cylon 
at the time of his attempted usurpation : the statue was of a man 
d^o'i koXKkjto^. Such language could hardly have been used except 
of the statue of one in the early prime and beauty of youth. In this 
statue, then, made doubtless long after the event, probably after the 
Persian wars^ and perhaps in the Periclean age, — if not as a substi- 
tute for a figure set up very soon after the event - and destroyed at 



somewhat recondite information that he furnishes about Cylon is clearly taken 
from some book in which matters of interest concerning these ayadrjuaTa were 
given (Polemon, drawing from Atthid-writers, and other sources). 

^ In the Persian occupation of Athens, the Acropolis was cleared of nearly 
everything. Herod. VIII. 53. 

2 The dedication of the statue here, near the temple of outraged Athena Polias, 
was intended as a sort of expiation for the guilt of sacrilegious murder. The statue 
was set up either by the offenders, or by their friends, or by the state, either 
immediately after the event, which is unlikely, or at some much later time, when 
it should have seemed that the crime had not been fully expiated. Now since we 
know that Cylon escaped, this proceeding is more likely to have taken place a 
long time after the event, when the fact of his escape had become obscured. In 
answer to the demands of the Lacedaemonians, at the opening of the Peloponne- 
sian war, that Pericles should be cast out, as tainted by ancient sacrilege, — tovto 
rh &yos eAavyetr, — ^the Athenians made the counter-demand that the Spartans 
should free themselves of the taint of the crime committed against Athena Chalci- 
oecus, i.e. the starving of King Pausanias in the temple of Athena at Sparta, 
thirty (Ad. Bauer, I.e. pp. 70, 72) years or more earlier. The Spartans had, how- 
ever, in compliance with the direction of the god of Delphi, already offered " two 
bodies for the one," two bronze statues of Pausanias, which were set up near the 
temple (Thuc. I. 127, 128, 134, 135; cf. also Pans. III. 17. 7-9). From this lan- 
guage one might perhaps infer that the Athenians had already done their utmost 
in atonement for the Cylonian sacrilege : had, among other things, already dedi- 
cated on the Acropolis a statue of Cylon. 

The existence of this statue of Cylon can hardly be explained in connexion with 
the curious regulation with reference to the archons, whereby on entering office they 
solemnly swore that, if they should transgress any of the laws, they would dedicate 
a golden statue (o; de ivvia lipxayres bjjLvuvTes irphs rcS \idcp KaTe<pa.ri^ov avaOiicreif 
av'Spid.vra. xP'JCovv idu Tiva irapa^axri rwv v6f.i.a>v, Aristot. Respub. Ath, c. 7; cf. 
Heracl. Exc. Pol. 8; Pollux VIII. 86; Suid. s.v. xp^c"? ^iKciv). In Plato (^Phaedr. 
235 e) Socrates playfully embroiders this oath, and ' adds unessential details 



42 JoJin Henry Wright. 

the time of the Persian occupation of the acropolis, perhaps as a sort 
of an expiatory offering made by the friends of Pericles at the time 
when party strife had made his hereditary taint as an Alcmeonid a 
factor of great weight against him/ — we have a survival of the 
authentic tradition, elsewhere meeting us only in Herodotus, that 
Cylon was a young man at the time of his attempt. 

A second class of arguments in favor of a date for Cylon earlier 
than 621 B.C. may be based upon the probable age of the Megacles 
prominent in the affair as the archon who broke his word, and, at the 
head of a faction, committed sacrilegious murder. The age of this 
man at this time is to be inferred from that of his son Alcmeon, 
general of the Athenians in the First Sacred War. A discussion of 
this topic raises several related questions concerning the chronology, 
fortunes, and wealth of the Alcmeonidae in the latter part of the 
seventh and in the first half of the sixth centuries b.c. 



VI. 

THE ALCMEONIDAE BEFORE PEISISTRATUS. 

According to Attic traditions the noble house of the Alcmeoni- 
dae ^ had in the earliest historic period shown its pre-eminence : 
two of its members, Megacles and Alcmeon, had been so-called life- 
archons, the later being the last in that series.^ Uncertain as this tra- 



(xpfff^v iiKova laofieTpriTov els AeX^oi/s avaQi)<Teiv, but Plutarch (^Sol. 25), 
not seeing the fun, reproduces the whole passage from Plato as the ancient regula- 
tion). The statuette here provided for was of gold, and was evidently intended as a 
penalty for receiving bribes in office, not for other forms of malfeasance, and doubt- 
less would have been a statuette of some divinity, probably Athena, whose treasure 
had been appropriated. The statue of Cylon, however, mentioned by Pausanias, 
was a portrait statue of bronze. Pre-Solonian archons could hardly have dedicated 
such a statue. Furthermore, pre-Solonian archons would have known that Cylon 
had escaped. 

1 This statue seems to have stood not far from one of Pericles : Paus. I. 25. I 
and 28. I. 

2 Alcmeon (Alcmeonidae), not Alcmaeon, is the spelling of the Attic inscrip- 
tions, e.g. C./.A.,IV'> 373, n. 189, p. 98 (sixth century B.C.). Cf. Meisterhans, 
Gramm? § 14, p. 28, and notes 167 and 517. Euripides's play was entitled 
'A\K,aiwy, Cramer, A nee. Oxon. II. p. 337. 4. 'AAKfxfwvidat, Dem. XXI. 144 (2). 

^ In the list (Euseb. Chron. I. 185 ff.) of thirteen life-archons, beginning with 



The Date of Cylon. 43 

dition may be, there is no uncertainty about the tradition that makes 
this family one of the noble yeV?;, later called Eupatridae/ — from 



Medon, the sixth is Megacles and the thirteenth Alcmeon. The periods ascribed 
to these archons, who lived before ai'aypa(pai were begun, are purely conjectural. 
The presence of these names in this list, as also of the names of Agamestor 
(Philaid?), and Ariphron (Buzygid), and others, shows one of three things: 
either (i) that the tradition that the succession was limited to Medontidae, and 
so continued into the period of the decennial archontate (Paus. I. 3. 3; IV. 5. 10; 
13. 7), was false; or (2) that these men were Medontidae on their mothers' side, 
but on their fathers' side members of other families; or (3) that these names do 
not belong in the historic series, the ancient list having been revised by the inser- 
tion, at a late period, of well-known Attic names. Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. p. 406, 
note 2. 

^ The answer to the question as to whether the Alcmeonidae were Eupatridae 
(denied by Sauppe, Stein — on Herod. I. 59 — and others; affirmed by Vischer and 
others) will depend upon the sense in which we are to take the word : whether 
(l) as the name of an Attic -yivos, EinrarpiSai, or (2) evTrarpidat, as the generic 
name of a political class, an estate (Germ. 'Stand'), composed of certain ancient 
noble-born families, possessing certain traditional political rights and privileges. 
That there was such an Attic yevos is clear: see Isocr. xvi. 25, Dem. xxi. 144; 
Polemon, a/. Schol. Soph. O. C. 489 (cf. Wilamowitz, Phil. Unt. I. 119, note, 
and Hermes, 22 [1887], pp. 121, and 479 ff. [Topffer]; also Hirzel, Rhein. 
Mus. [1888], p. 631, but especially Topffer, Alt. Gen. pp. 175 ff.) ; that the 
Alcmeonidae did not belong to it is equally clear (cf. Isocr. /.c). That, how- 
ever, the Alcmeonidae were an ancient family, and that its members enjoyed the 
highest privileges, in the state, of holding office, etc., is also demonstrable (cf. 
Vischer, Kl. Schriften, I. pp. 401 ff.). The scolion preserved in Aristot. Respub. 
Ath. c. 19, and often quoted (see Rose, Aristot. Fragm. 394, and Aristot. Pseu- 
depigr. pp. 417, 418), shows that in the mouths of the people the Alcmeonidae 
were early called euTrarpiSat, whatever the word may have meant : alal AeirpvSpiop 
irpoSwcreTaipou \ o'lovs &i'Spas airuAecras iJ,dx^<ySai \ ayo.dovs re Kal fvwaTpidas | oi 
t6t' e5€i|ai' o'/oiv I TraTepcsji' faav. 

From the extreme rarity, if not entire absence, of the word einrarpiSai in prose- 
writers before Aristotle, to designate a political office-holding class of nobles as 
contrasted with the low-born populace (i.e. in the sense of Lat. optimates, patricii), 
— perhaps because the word had already been taken up in the name of the yeyos 
EviraTplSai (cf. Isocr. xvi. 25), — and from the use, where we should look for it, of 
01 eiiyeve7s, ra yevr}, 01 Svvuroi, 01 Aa/xwpol, ol eK tcov yevccv, ol yvwpi^oi, etc., one 
might raise the question whether eviraTpidai, at least before the time of Aristotle, 
was naturally and generally understood in this special sense. A poetical word 
originally (Soph. El. 160, 857, Eur. Ale. 920), it had more than one meaning: 
' good or true to one's father ' — so of Orestes, perhaps the reputed founder of the 
yivos Evnarpidai (Hirzel, Rhein. Mus. 43 [1888], p. 631) — or ' of good parent- 



44 . JoJin Hctiry Wright. 

which archons were chosen, — and that connects its members with 
many important phases of Attic history from the latter half of the 
seventh century B.C. onward. The Alcmeonidae first meet us in con- 
nexion with the affair of Cylon, and their attitude in this matter raises 
a question as to the causes of their activity. Did they assail and sup- 
press Cylon only as the head or representative of a rival family, wishing 
to retain for themselves the pre-eminence which the election of one 
or more of their number to the archonship bears witness to ? Or did 
they act rather as patriots, defenders of the state against tyrants, 
— fjLLcroTvpavvoi, as Herodotus calls them — with disinterested motives? 
Or were they merely public officers doing their official duty in quelling 
a sedition and uprising that threatened the existence of the state? 
The violence with which they acted, disregarding the holiest laws 
which made the suppliant sacred, shows that this last explanation is 
inadequate. A definitive answer can hardly be given : doubtless 
several or even all of these considerations combined as motives. 
Aristotle's Sta rqv Trpos dXXyXov; (^iXoviKiav, said of the party strug- 



age.' It may have been adopted by Aristotle in a technical sense, — in part because 
of one of its meanings; in part perhaps because of the representative character of 
the family Eu7rarpi5ai, just as in Roman times Eteobutadae was used as the 
synonyme of evyevus (Topffer, Ait. Geneal. p. 117), — and later on, especially 
in Roman times, when the analogy of Roman political conditions affected the 
scholar's conceptions, it may have becorne thoroughly established in this sense. 
Thus Plut, uses it for the Latin patricians (^Fab. 16, Popl. 18); and in Dion. Hal. 
Ant. II. 8, eiiiraTpidai is Greek for patricii, as a-ypoiKoi for plebeii. Landwehr, 
Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V. (1884) pp. 143 ff., has the examples; cf. also Busolt, G. G. I. 
pp. 387-89, for the bibliography. 

It should be added that Aristotle himself never uses the word in the Politics, 
and only twice in Respub. Ath. (cc. 13, 19), elsewhere preferring, where this would 
seem to have been the natural expression, other words (oj yva>pif/.oi, etc.). It is 
doubtful — a third possible case — whether this word was found in Aristotle's 
account of the Attic state under Theseus, in the lost part of the Respiib. Ath. 
(Rose, Aristot. Fragin. 3S4, 385). It is not given (as Kenyon remarks, p. 173) 
in the early versions of this passage (^Lex. Dem. Patm. p. 152 — Sakkelion, 
Bull. Corr. Hellen. I. 1877; — Schol. Plat. Axioch. 371 D; Moeris, Lex. Att. p. 
193) , though it occurs in the paraphrase in Plut. Thes. 25, and in Pollux VIII. 1 1 1. 
The last version is in part, at least, demonstrably an expansion, by the insertion 
of the words e{ euiroTpiScSv, of the language of Aristotle {^Respub. Ath. c. 8 : ^uAal 
5' ^aav S' KaOdntp irpSTepov koI (f)v\o0acn\i7s rtTrapis, k.t.\. Pollux., ib. : oi df 
(pv\ofiaa'tXi7s e| evTrarptSoiv 6' iivTes, w.t.A.). 



The Date of Cylon, 45 

gles immediately after Solon's reforms, points, as we have already 
remarked, to early family rivalries. Friends of the Alcmeonidae in 
subsequent centuries, as they looked back upon the history of the 
family, in which prominent members stand forth as the enemies of 
tyrants and as the upholders of the people against oligarchical 
domination, saw in this house ideal champions of the liberty of the 
people, but they viewed history with false perspective.^ Megacles, 
the younger, who, at the head of the Parali, withstood Peisistratus, 
champion of the Diacrii, did so, — as also Lycurgus, the leader of 
the Pediaei, — not with high motives, but because he hoped to 
gain something by it, and in particular a mastery over his rivals. 
The subsequent compromise proposed by Megacles to Peisistratus, 
whereby the tyrant having married his daughter should receive 
Megacles's support in his usurpation, is hardly the conduct of a 
pure-minded patriot.^ When finally the Peisistratidae were cast out, 
in large measure through the efforts of the outraged Alcmeonidae, 
and Cleisthenes, the son of Megacles, with his adherents gained the 
ascendancy in the state, as over-against his oligarchic rivals now 
headed by Isagoras, it was apparently mainly to establish himself and 
his party in power that he instituted his far-reaching reforms.^ At 



1 Cf. especially Isocr. xvi. 25, who celebrates the wealth and patriotic spirit 
of the family : o\ rov filv ttKovtov ixiyiarov fxvr)fj.etov Kare\twov — 'iTrircoi' yap ^evyei 
rrpuiTOs 'A\K/xewv riov iroXiruv 'OKvixnlaffiv iv'iKrjffe — t^jv 5' evvoiav ^v elxof els 
rh irXTJdos ev toIs TvpavvLKols eiredei^avTo . . . oiiK rj^iaicrav fieracrxf^i' ttjs iKeivou 
(i.e. Peisistratus) Tvpavvi^os aW' e'iXovro ^vytlv /xaWov f) roiis iroKiras iSeTi' 
SovAevovras, K.r.\. Modern instances of a similar lack of historical perspective 
abound. 

^ Plut. So/. 29 : Trpay/j.aTa vewrepa irpoarSoKcii) koI uo6e7v UTravTas {i.e. these 
party leaders) krepav KaTacrTaaiv, ovk 'iaov ^Xtti^ovras, aWa irXiov f^eiv ev tjj 
HeTal3o\fi ko.I Kparriaeiv TravTa-Kacn rS)v Siacpepofxevwv. Herod. I. 59) 60 : efOa, Si] 
6 TleifflffTpaTos fipx^ 'AOrjvaiaii'. The factions of Lycurgus and Megacles combine 
against Peisistratus and cast him out; they subsequently fall out among them- 
selves, and Megacles makes a compromise with Peisistratus, offering his daughter 
in marriage (M rvpavv(di). 

^ Herod. V. 66 : oZtol ol avSpes earaaiaaav Trepi 5vi/d/j,ios, kaaovixevos Se 6 
KXtL(rd4v7)s rhv briixov TrpocreTaLpiCerai, as more than a century earlier, for a practi- 
cally similar purpose, Cylon had called to his aid an kTaipy\iy\v ruv riMicicnTeaiv. 
Aristotle's language is (Respub. Ath. c. 20) : karacsM^ov irphs a.\\-ft\ovs 'IcaySpas 
. . . Kal K\ei(T0fV7}s . . . fjTTiofievos de tolls eraipeiaLs 6 K\ft(T0ev7]s TrpoirrjydyeTO rhv 
Stj/jlou, aTTooidohs rS ir\-f]9eL rrjv noKireiau (see above, p. 38, note). The radical 



46 JoJin Henry Wright. 

no point in the political history of the family — except, perhaps, in 
some of the acts of its greatest scion, Pericles — do we find evi- 
dence of wholly disinterested and patriotic conduct ; misfortune, 
exile, and many other reverses, together with signal success in the 
gaining of wealth, uniting its members closely, had strongly developed 
the family feeling, and had taught them insight and political wisdom, 
which, when the opportunity arrived, they put to brilliant use to their 
own great advantage, as also to that of the state. 

According to the clear language of Thucydides the attempt of 
Cylon was brought to a summary end by an uprising of the people, 
hastening in from the country, followed by violent measures on the 
part of the Alcmeonidae. The interests of the Alcmeonidae are 
here served by the people from the country : the family may be 
regarded as now standing at the head of the second of the two great 
classes into which from early times the Athenian people fall, — the class 
whom Aristotle calls arroiKot, and which would at this time include the 
artisan as well as the peasant class. Though the lines appear sharply 
drawn between the well-to-do and the poor, there is as yet no evi- 
dence of minuter subdivisions according to class differences, nor 
according to local factions, which meet us in quick succession soon 
after Solon's legislation. Two generations later the family appears — 
in the person of Megacles, grandson of the Megacles of the affair of 
Cylon — as the champion of the local faction of the Parali, social and 
economic changes having come about that led most naturally to this 
relation ; three generations later it is the people {Demus) as such that 
Cleisthenes allies to himself; five generations later it is by his extraor- 
dinary services to the Demus that Pericles maintains himself in his 
supreme position ; while in the sixth generation the coquettings of 



character of the reforms of Cleisthenes was doubtless suggested to him by the 
experience of his grandfather, for whose reorganization of the Sicyon constitution 
one would hardly claim a patriot's disinterestedness. The ostracism of Mega- 
cles, son of Hippocrates and nephew of Cleisthenes, in 487/6 B.C., as supporter of 
the Peisistratidae shows that the family had no ingrained aversion to tyranny 
(Aristot. Kespub. Ath. c. 22). Lysias (xiv. 39; cf. [Andoc] Contra Ale. 34) 
makes him Cleisthenes's son, grandfather of Alcibiades, — hence perhaps the 5Is. 
See also the ostrakon bearing the name of Megacles, son of Hippocrates, the per- 
son mentioned by Aristotle (Benndorf, Griech. u. Sicil. Vaseubilder, p. 50, pi. 
29, no. 10); and a pinax discussed by Studniczka {Jahrb. d. Arch. Inst. 2. 
[1SS7], p. 161J. 



The Date of Cylon. 47 

the Alcmeonid Alcibiades with the same Demus are the causes at 
once of his rise and of his fall. 

The affair of Cylon, marked as it was by violence and unholy blood- 
shed, was followed by a long period of strife. The survivors of the 
Cylonians and their adherents gain strength, and a reaction against 
the Alcmeonidae sets in, mainly political,^ but doubtless sharpened 
by the superstitious sense of outraged divine law. The people are at 
variance and in dread of worse ill ; according to some authorities 
Solon,^ then beginning to rise into prominence, having the confidence 
of both parties, or some other influential citizen, prevails upon the 
Alcmeonidae to submit to the verdict of trial by a special court of 
three hundred citizens selected for this purpose. The formal accuser, 
as we have seen, is Myron, a Lycomid ; the Alcmeonidae are found 
guilty ; the bodies of the dead offenders are dug up and cast beyond 
the borders ; the Hving relatives withdraw, condemned to perpetual 
exile. ^ 

The trial and exile of the Alcmeonidae must have taken place no 
little time before the legislation of Solon, and before the breaking 
out of the Sacred War, in which Alcmeon, now head of the house, 
is general of the Athenian contingent.* There are two grounds for 



1 Cf. Schomann, Jahrb. f. Philol. iii (1875), pp. 464 ff. 

2 The connexion of Solon with this trial has only slight evidence to sustain it. 
Niese, Ztir Gesch. Solans, p. 14. 

3 Unless the detail about the i^opicr/j.6s of the bodies of the dead be a ditto- 
graphy for what was said of the procedure in the time of Cleisthenes (an un- 
likely hypothesis; see above, p. 17, note i), one must infer that a considerable 
time had elapsed between the sacrilege and the trial. Aristotle's language sug- 
gests that Megacles, the chief culprit, was one of the dead; at all events, we hear 
nothing of him again. Diels {^Sitzungsb. d. Berl. Akad., 1891, p. 388) supposes 
a generation to have passed. 

* The main ground for a later date of the trial is the supposed connexion of 
Epimenides with the measures taken for the purification of the city from the 
KuActj^etov ^705. According to this view, the trial must have taken place, if not 
after the arrival of Epimenides, — according to one account (Diog. Laert. I. 10. 
1 10; cf. Suid. s.v. 'Ein/j.evidr]s for another date) he came 01. 42. i = 596 B.C., — 
at least shortly before it. Thus Schomann — who fixes the date of the affair of 
Cylon at 612 B.C., and not, as we would, a dozen or more years earlier — would 
put the trial after the beginning of the Sacred War (by him dated 600 B.C.), and 
before Epimenides (596 B.C.) : after the beginning of the war, because otherwise 
Alcmeon could hardly have been chosen general; before Epimenides, because in 



48 JgJih Henry Wright . 

this inference : first, the selection of Alcmeon as representative of 
the Athenian people in the war for the honor of Delphi, and, sec- 
ondly, the fact that a reaction had set in against the Cylonians 
before the enactment of Solon's laws. Both of these things would 
have been impossible but for a considerable lapse of time. We must 
conceive of the case somewhat as follows : after the departure of the 
Alcmeonidae, the keenness of the feeling of hatred (emyets Iiiktovvto) 
which prompted the severity of their punishment became less and 
less sharp, — in part because of the natural reaction that sets in in 
all such cases ; in part doubtless because of the good report that 
came home of the brave and wise conduct of the members of the 
family in their absence, and especially of Alcmeon ; in part also 
because of new ties of business formed between enterprising Athe- 
nians at home and the absent Alcmeonidae, who were now in all 
probability adventuring themselves in trade and commerce in foreign 
lands, and thus laying the foundations of the wealth for which in 
subsequent times their family was illustrious. With the growth and 
spread of this feeling in favor of the Alcmeonidae — the most conspicu- 
ous evidence of which was the choice of Alcmeon as general, and the 
restoration of the family therein involved — there went also a deepen- 
ing of the feeling against the Cylonians, which is clearly expressed in the 
language of the amnesty-law of Solon, given in the thirteenth a^wr.' 



the accounts of the activity of Epimenides in purifying the city, no mention is 
made of the trial and exile. But — to leave out of consideration the very ques- 
tionable date of the Sacred War assumed by Schomann and the fact that the 
order of events in Aristotle's narrative (^Respub. Ath. cc. I ff.) points conclusively 
to a trial of the Alcmeonidae, if not before Draco, certainly not long after him, 
— it is highly improbable that Solon's amnesty-law (Plut. Sol. 19) should have 
allowed the return of the exiles only a few months after their awful banishment, 
while making an express exception in the case of the exiled Cylonians. Further, 
as will be shown later (pp. 69 ff.), the connexion of Epimenides with this affair, 
at least as late as 596 B.C., is problematical, and arguments based upon it have 
little weight. 

1 Plut. Sol. 19: this law, which provides for pardon and restoration to rights 
of citizenship, makes exception in the case of the Cylonians, in the words 
•K\y]v baoi . . . iK irpvTaveiov Kara^iKaudivres . . . iirX TupavviSi itpivyov. Even if, 
with Lipsius-Schomann {Att. Proc. I. p. 27), we deny that the court before which 
the Cylonians were tried M'as an archon's court, there can be no doubt that in 
these words the Cylonians are meant. The ei's tt/i/ Kpiaiv . . . kv 'Apelqj Trdycp of 
Schol. I. At. £t^. 445 is a mistaken form of statement, which has no weight. 
See pp. 16, 24, and note i. 



The Date of Cylon. 49 

All such changes of popular feeling take time, and we can hardly be 
wrong in insisting that between the affair of Cylon, which was the 
original cause of all these changes of mental attitude, and the later 
exhibitions of popular feeling in the matter, a period of many years 
must have elapsed. 

In the generation in which the attempt of Cylon was thwarted, 
the conspicuous Alcmeonid is Megacles. In the next generation the 
leading member of the family is Alcmeon, the son of Megacles, 
noted for the part he took in the Sacred War and for his great 
wealth.^ About the exact date and length of the Sacred War there 
is still ground for uncertainty, though there is every probability 
that the war practically closed in the archonship at Athens of Simon 
{i.e. 590 B.C.) ;^ its duration is wholly uncertain, since we must regard 
the ten-year period ascribed to it by later writers ^ as a sort of ana- 
chronistic echo of the ten-year period of the Sacred War in the fourth 
century b.c. (357-346 B.C.), if not suggested by the legend of the 
Trojan War. This first Sacred War, though not so great an affair as it 
was made out to be in much later times,^ still has something of a univer- 
sal character, the several tribes of the Delphian amphictyony taking 
sides : the leader of the Athenian contingent in it, — according to the 
best records, the Delphic vTrofx-vyixara — was Alcmeon.^ It is reasonable 



1 Plut. Sol. 11; Herod. VI. 125; Isocr. xvi. 25. 

2 Simon, archon 01. 47. 3; Mar. Par. Ep. 37, For a discussion of the date of 
the founding of the Pythian (rTi<pavirris aytiiv, which is connected with that of 
the Sacred War, see Landwehr, Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V. (1884), pp. 105-114. 
Ad. Bauer, I.e. p. 48, discussing the subject in the light of the recovered Respub. 
Ath., sets this date at B.C. 583; Damasias he would place B.C. 583-1, under- 
standing the Sfvrepov of Mar. Par. Ep. 38 to refer not to Damasias's second year, 
but to Damasias II. (Damasias I., archon in B.C. 639/8; Dion. Hal. An^. III. 38). 

3 Callisthenes, rt/. Athen. XIII. 560 c. Cf. Niese, Zur Gesch. Solons, pp. 16 ff. 
« Thuc. I. 15. 

^ Plut. Sol. II: 61/ T 6 Tots Ae\(pcov iirofj.vfifj.atnv 'AXK/naliav . . . 'AOrjvalwv ffrpa- 
rriyhs avaytypairTai. The tradition (Aristot. Pythion. and Euanthes the Samian, 
as quoted by Hermippus, — given us in Plut. Sol. 11; also Aesch. Ctes. 108) repre- 
sented Solon as prominent in the agitation that led to the war, and, according to 
Euanthes, made him general. Even though with Niese {Zur Gesch. Solons, p. 17) 
we may be disposed to look upon this as a pleasing Aeschinean fiction (Dem. Cor. 
149, \iyo\]s €inrpo(T(i>7rous koI /mvOovs odev tj Ktppaia %ci5pa KaOiepcidr) ffvvO^ls kuI 
Sif^eKOdv), a proceeding which the quotation from Aristotle (TruadevTes yap vn 
iKsipov Trphs rhv ir6\ef^ov wpij-rjaav ol 'A/xcpiKTvoves ws ^AAot re fiaprvpovcrt Kal 



go , JoJin Henry WrigJit. 

to believe that, under all the circumstances, Alcmeon at this time, 
-i.e. before 590 b.c, could not have been a young man.^ The nec- 
essary qualifications for the office of general were age, experience, 
reputation, and these conditions must have been especially required in 
a candidate belonging to a family upon which the taint still rested. 
The bearing of this inference upon the main question under discus- 
sion will be more evident later on. 

The wealth of Alcmeon and its source is a subject deserving 
examination, especially as the testimonies relating to it are somewhat 
confused. Herodotus (VI. 125) names Alcmeon as the friend of Croe- 
sus, — which is of course impossible, — and gives the well-known story 
of the origin of his wealth from the gifts of Croesus, and remarks 
that it was by reason of this wealth that he presented himself at 
Olympia with a four-horse chariot and won the race ; he also adds 
that the house was further enriched in the next generation by Clei- 
sthenes of Sicyon, into whose family Megacles, Alcmeon's son, had 
married. Evidently the same victor and the same victory in the 
four-horse chariot-race, adduced as an evidence of the wealth of 
the Alcmeonidae, are celebrated by Isocrates (xvi, 25) ; this victory 
is by him said to have been the first one of its kind won by an 
Athenian." Pindar'^ (yPyth. 7. 14) declares that one Olympic, five 



'Api(7T0TfA.7js iv TT] tSjv TIvOlovikuv a.va.ypa(pfj 'S.SXuvi t^iv yvwfxriv auartdeis) ought 
to make us slow to do, we still have no reason to doubt the part taken in the war 
by Alcmeon. 

1 Aristot. (^Jiesptib. Ath. c. 4) asserts that, under the Draconian constitution, 
which prevailed at the time when Alcmeon was chosen to office, it was required 
that the generals should be men with a property qualification of not less than one 
hundred minae, and should have children born in wedlock over ten years of age. 

Phrynon, general before Sigeum, about B.C. 610, must have been, at the time of 
his cTTpaTTj-yia, not less than forty-five years of age. He won an Olympic victory, 
01. 36 (B.C. 636): in the irayKpaTiov, according to Diog. Laert. I. 4. 74; in the 
stadium (apparently), according to Euseb. I. 199; he fell before Sigeum in a single 
combat with Pittacus. Probably Jul. Afric. wrote 'Aprvrd/xas AaKwv a-rddiov. 
TlayKpariov ^pvvaiv 'AOrji^aios, hs UiTTaKCfi ij.ovo/iaxooi> avrjpedr) (Rutgers, yul. Afr. 
pp. 13, 14; for Artytamas, of. Antigon. Carystius, Hist. Mirab. 121, in West- 
ermann's Paradoxographi, p. 90). 

2 The 'LitTxinv rsXelwv Sp6uos . . . was established 01. 25 (B.C. 6S0), and the first 
victor was the Theban Pagondas (Paus. V. 8. 7). 

** Pind. Pyth. 7. 13 ff. : dyovrt de fj.e vevTe fifv 'laS/xoT | vIkui, fila S' iKTrpeirris \ 
Atbs 'OAu^n-tas | 5vo 5' airh Kippas. The contradiction of this statement found in 



The Date of Cylon. 51 

Isthmian, and two Pythian victories were obtained by members of 
the family (before B.C. 490). The SchoHast on this passage, though 
he gives us an extraordinary wreck of details, yet preserves the good 
tradition (aVaypac^eTat), that this victory was won in 01. 47 (b.c. 592).^ 
It was traditionally believed, then, that at this early date — about 
590 B.C. — the Alcmeonidae were a wealthy family, and the explana- 
tion for this wealth was found, perversely and impossibly enough, in 
a supposed connexion with Croesus. Croesus, however, belonged to 
the next generation, not ascending the throne before 560 B.C.," though 
he may have had a share in the government with his father Alyattes 



Arg. II. Ar. Nub. and in Schol. Ar. Nub. 64 (Tzetz. Chil. I. 8 only follows this 
Schol.) is sufficiently met by Boeckh, Find. II. 2, pp. 303, 304. The large num- 
ber of Isthmian victories accredited to the family is doubtless to be explained by 
the proximity of Sicyon to the place of the games : Sicyon must have been to 
Megacles, the husband of Agariste, and to their immediate descendants, a second 
home. According to Krause's lists {Pythien, Ne7n. u. Isth. pp. 209-23), the 
cities that furnished much the larger number of Isthmian victors were Corinth, 
x\egina, and Sicyon; Athens is only slightly represented. This shows that there 
were exceptional reasons — probably due to local causes — why the Alcmeonidae 
were often at these games. 

1 Boeckh, jPzwo'. II. i, p. 391. In the Schol. the name of the victor is wrongly 
given as Megacles, a reading which Boeckh at first accepted, and accordingly 
identifying this Megacles with the Cylonian Megacles, he brought down the date of 
Cylon to suit (b.c. 599). In the commentary on the passage Boeckh withdraws 
this identification (II. 2, p. 304 : " meam ad Scholia olim proditam opinionem re- 
movero"), and would emend the date to 01. 57, — without, however, withdrawing 
the date for Cylon, — and refer the victory to Megacles, the contemporary of 
Peisistratus (Schol. Ar. Nub. 64). This latter victory, by the way, is, on the face of 
it, wrongly ascribed to Megacles; the Schol. has confused the name of Megacles 
with that of Cimon (Herod. VI. 35, 36; VI. 103), and ascribes to the former what 
belongs to the latter (cf. Krause, Olympia, p. 324). The confusion of names 
in the Schol. is not surprising; as the orators confuse the names of Miltiades and 
Cimon, as Herodotus, Aelian, and Paus. (VI. 19. 6) furnish similar instances, it 
is to be expected that a less familiar Alcmeon should be turned into a more 
familiar Megacles. Cf. Topffer, Att. Ge7t. p. 280, note. 

2 Croesus's reign probably ceased 546 B.C. : he marched against Cyrus B.C. 548, 
01. 58. I (Euseb. 1. 96), and was soon defeated, and Sardis was taJcen (cf. Sosicrates 
ap. Diog. Laert. II. 7. 95) : cf. Clinton, F. H. II. s.a. 546 B.C. : the date of the fall 
of Sardis was an accepted and well-known epoch (Diels, Rhein. Mus. 31, p. 20). 
Croesus was thirty-five years of age at the death of his father (Herod. I. 26), and 
reigned fourteen years (Herod. I. 86) ; the date of his accession to the throne 
would then be about 560 B.C. For variant dates, see Busolt, G.G. I. pp. 332 ff. 



52 ' John Henry Wright.. 

for a while before this time. In the light of the statement in Hero- 
dotus (I. 19) that Alyattes, having fallen sick, consulted the oracle at 
Delphi, and of the subsequent statement (VI. 125) that the Lydian 
king — here, to be sure, named Croesus — in gratitude to Alcmeon 
for aid rendered his ambassadors invited him to Sardis and vastly en- 
riched him, Schomann ' makes the ingenious suggestion that Alyattes, 
not Croesus, was the actual source of the wealth of the Alcmeonidae. 
The confusion^ of the son with his father was very natural, especially 
after Croesus had become the type of the wealthy monarch.^ 



1 Schomann {Jahrb. f. Philol. Ill [1875], P- 4^^) gives two reasons for 
believing that Herodotus is wrong in here naming Croesus: Croesus did not 
ascend the throne until fully thirty years after Alcmeon's (TTpaTrjyia, and, sec- 
ondly, he always stood in too good repute in Delphi to make it likely that his 
ambassadors needed the aid and special pleadings of others. 

2 Though there are several fictitious features in this story, it is more reasonable 
to believe that Herodotus has erred in his chronology than that there is no basis 
of fact whatever for friendly aid given the Alcmeonidae by a Lydian king. 

3 Of course the story in Herodotus (I. 30-33) , followed by Plutarch (SoL z'j ff.), 
which brings Solon and Croesus together, is equally improbable. Plutarch admits 
the chronological difficulties, but naively waives them in the characteristic pas- 
sage : Tryv Trphs Kpolaov evTev^iv avTOv doKovcriv tvLoi toIs xpovois as Tmr\acF^4vriv 
iKiyXii'V- fya> Si K6yov e^'5o|ov ovr<a . . . Koi, h fiuCov iari, irp^TTOPTa rcS '2,6\aivos 
ijOei ... 01; fioi doKco irporicreaQai xpoi^^xo^s nai Aeyofxivois KavSai k.t.K. (^Sol. 27, 
ad init.'). Niese, Zur Gesch. Solons, p. 10. 

Five instances of error on the part of Herodotus in establishing synchronisms 
will strike every reader : viz. (i) Herod. I. 29, which brings Solon and Croesus 
together; (2) Herod. VI. 125, Alcmeon and Croesus; (3) Herod. H. 177, 
Solon and Amasis; (4) Herod. V. 127, Pheidon of Argos and Megacles, the 
suitor of Agariste; and (5) Herod. V. 94, 95, where the (original) conquest of 
Sigeum is ascribed to Peisistratus. Now we must suppose that Herodotus was 
well informed as regards the chronological position, measured by generations, in 
relation to himself, of prominent persons living as far back as the middle of the 
sixth century B.C., i.e. one hundred years before his own time (Croesus, Megacles, 
and perhaps Amasis). It is to be noted that, in all these instances of error, he 
has merely drawn down into the times known to him personalities belonging to 
a vaguer, earlier generation : Alcmeon was rich, — hence he must have been the 
friend of the wealthy Croesus. Solon was a sage, — hence he must have been 
the adviser of the ill-starred Croesus; also a law-giver, — hence he must have had 
some connexion with the prince of the land of wise and hoary institutions. 
Almost everything that Herodotus tells about, the intercourse of these persons is 
of the most general character, like the anecdotes, of a painful family likeness, that 
are popularly told of all noteworthy personages. With, perhaps, the single excep- 



The Date of Cylon. 53 

However this may be, there must have been some ground for the 
tradition that made the Alcmeonidae gain their weahh over seas. 
I would offer a suggestion as to the source of the ancient wealth of 
the Alcmeonidae at the time, which, though not certain, seems to 
have a large degree of probability in it. It is that the Alcmeonidae 
were among the first foreign traders from Athens, at a time when for- 
eign trade was, for Athens at least, in its inception ; that the sure 
foundations of their activity as traders were laid in their exile, though 
this activity may have begun yet earlier ; that this activity was kept 
up with such vigor and success after their return, that the head of 
the house in the generation next following Alcmeon — i.e. Megacles 
the younger — naturally became the leader and representative of the 
merchant or trading class in the Athenian state. The main argument 
on which this theory is based is the fact that Megacles was the leader 
of the Parali. This leadership could not have been due to the acci- 
dent of local habitation, as Peisistratus's leadership of the Diacrii 
was perhaps due to the fact that his family home and stronghold was 



tion of what is related of Solon's debt to Amasis, nothing in these instances has 
the stamp of a vivid, unique historical reality. The explicit, and apparently more 
historic, character of the statements in II. 177, to the effect that Solon owed to 
Amasis what was afterward called the yo'/tos apyias, gives them the air of greater 
credibility, and T. Case (Class. Rexnew, 1888, p. 241) does well to call attention 
to them. On the other hand, however, the tradition as to the origin of this v6iJios 
apyias is so variant in antiquity that we can by no means be certain that Herodo- 
tus's form of it is the correct one; thus (i) Lysias, Contra Nicid. {ap. Diog. Laert. 
I. 2. 55) asserts that Draco proposed the law, and Draco's connexion with the 
law further appears from Plut. Sol. 17, Phot. Lex. App. p. 665, Pollux VIII. 42. 
(2) Theophrastus asserts that Peisistratus was the author of the law (Plut. Sol. 31), 
while (3) Herodotus (II. 177) ascribes it to Amasis. Now Peisistratus and Amasis 
were contemporaries; Amasis therefore might be supposed to have suggested the 
measure to Peisistratus, Amasis being the personal form for Egypt. Herodotus, 
however, makes Solon the promulgator of all good laws; hence it must have been 
to Solon that Amasis suggested it. A more probable explanation would deny any 
personal connexion between Solon and Amasis as the origin of the usage; in 
ancient times there was both at Athens and in Egypt a law prohibiting idleness; 
Amasis was the Solon of Egypt, and Solon the Amasis of Greece; Egypt was 
more ancient than Greece, hence Amasis gave Solon the law. Still again : Solon 
visited Egypt; what more natural — as Plutarch would say, it is a \6yos Trp4ir(ci> 
TCf ^SXaivos ^6ei — than that the Athenian legislator should have met the Egyp- 
tian legislator, and adopted from him the measure which prevailed in both lands? 



54 JoJm Henry Wright. ' 

in' the thickly populated Brauronian fastnesses in the upland country 
of Diacria^ ; the ancient seat of the Alcmeonidae seems to have been, 
not on the shore, but well up in the Athenian plain, on the slopes of 
Parnes near Leipsydrium,^ where many years later they bravely 
though unsuccessfully withstood the sons of Peisistratus. This lead- 
ership can be most intelligibly explained only on the supposition of 



1 Plut. Sol. 10; Schol. Ar. Av. 873; Schol. Ar. Pac. 874. 

2 Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 19: '' h.KKjxzwvi'ha.i. . . . T^i-xiaavTi^ kv ttj X^P'} Aen//u- 
Spiov rh vTTep [uTrb?] Tldpuyjdos, els h crvvrjKdSv rives ruv iic tov acTews. The text 
is probably corrupt, since the readings derived from the original text are various, 
viz. (l) VTTep Hapvr\Oos, Hesych. s.v. Aei^v^ptov. (2) rh vwep Tldpv7]dos, Suid. s.v. 
Au/tJiroSes. (3) irepl rr;;' VldpurjOoi/, Schol. Ar. Lys. 666. (4) vnh ttjs TldpvqOos, 
Et. Mag. p. 361. 32. (5) Herod. V. 62: A«ti|/i^5pioj' ro inrep Tlaioviris reiX'^ofTes- 
Aristotle is following Herodotus; perhaps in the original text of Herodotus 
stood the words vnep Ilaiopias virh UdpurjOos, which in the version that has 
reached us have been abbreviated into the incorrect virep Tldpvrjdos. Paeonia 
— Paeonidae, not far from modern Menidhi — lay in the Attic ireBiov, north 
of Athens (Milchhofer, Texi to Curtius and Kaupert's Attika, H. 42) ; accord- 
ing to the explanation suggested above, Leipsydrium lay " beyond " it, on the 
southern slopes of Parnes. Aristotle, the Scholiasts, and the lexicographers 
make Leipsydrium a sort of earlier Phyle, whither the patriots of the sixth century 
fled and where they congregated. We may best explain the several statements 
by supposing that the Alcmeonidae fortified their ancient family home. The 
Alcmeonidae and the Paeonidae were cognate "yevi), and must originally have 
dwelt near each other; Paeonia was the seat of the Paeonidae. Isocrates (xvi. 
25) asserts that whenever the Peisistratidae conquered the Alcmeonidae, they 
levelled their houses to the ground and dug up their graves. Perhaps the scolion 
on Leipsydrium (see above, p. 43, note i) refers in part to some such acts. Later 
members of the family of the Alcmeonidae, to be sure, come from Agryle (Leobates, 
Plut. Them. 23) and Alopece {C.I.A. I. 122; Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 22), and 
from other demes of the ize^iov, not, however, in the vicinity of Leipsydrium, but 
near Athens. These cases, however, belong to post-Cleisthenean times; the new 
demes by no means stood for the ancient homes of families of the demotae. The 
members of an ancient family might well be scattered over Attica. 

One might hazard the conjecture that it was as promoters of trade between 
Euboea and Athens — the chief route of which passed their doors — or perhaps 
as exporters of corn from their fertile inland estates that the Alcmeonidae origi- 
nally came into relation with the Shoremen, a relation that grew more intimate 
as new foreign connexions, formed when the family went into exile, extended the 
range of their commercial activity. Aristotle seems to suggest Delphi as the 
source of the wealth of the family (^Respub. Ath. c. 19, 2^6^ evirSpricrav, k.t.\.). 
But the passage, besides being corrupt, is a faulty condensation of Herod. VI. 62 
ad fin. and 63 ad init. 



The Date of Cylon. 55 

an identity of business interests, an identity that had been the slow 
growth of years.^ 

The beginnings of trade and industry in Attica "' are hardly to be 
placed much earlier than the last third of the seventh century B.C. 
The primitive system of barter had prevailed hitherto. By the middle 
of the following century there was a vigorous trade with the west, in 
which Athens received grain in exchange for her pottery and for her 
silver. Solon's prohibition '^ of the export of all agricultural products of 
Attica — this cannot include manufactured articles — except oil, the 
supply of which alone exceeded the demand for local consumption, 
shows that before his legislation there had been extensive trading and 
an exportation by enterprising merchants of articles needed for home 
use. The corn trade, to be sure, was largely in the hands of Megara, 
which, like Corinth and Aegina, much anticipated Athens in commer- 
cial enterprise ; and when the war with Megara closed this source of 
supply, distress was prevalent. But Athens herself launched her ships 
upon the seas, and now sought gain in foreign lands.^ Indeed, it was 
probably with a view to securing something of the corn trade of the 
Black Sea that the Athenians were led, not long after Draco, to send an 
expedition, their first to cross the seas, so as to secure a foothold on the 
Hellespont in the Troad. Involved in a quarrel with Mytilene, which 
laid claim to the Troad as her own colonial territory (Aeolic), the 
Athenians succeeded, however, in maintaining their ground after the 
decisive capture of Sigeum.^ The establishment of the naucraries,^ 
which clearly had to do with the promotion of a navy, probably for 
the protection of the merchant marine, is unintelligible except upon 



^ The significance of the connexion of the family with the Parali reappears as 
late as the time of Pericles, whose son Paralus received his name probably in 
recognition of this relation, a name originally suggested, doubtless, by that of the 
Attic hero Paralus (Eur. Suppl, 659), himself, however, perhaps the mythical 
impersonation of the Parali. Cf. Stein, on Herod. I. 59. 16. 

2 On the whole subject, see Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 501 ff.; H. Droysen, Athen 
u. d. Westen, pp. 39-40. ^ Plut. Sol. 24. 

* Sol. Frag. 13. 43-46, cited in part above, p. 9, note 3. 

5 Strabo XIII. 599. The date of the operations before Sigeum was not far 
from B.C. 610: see above, p. 9, and note 5. The Sigean Inscription belongs 
to a date only a little later: Roberts, Greek Epigr. pp. 78, 334-6; Kirchhoff, 
Studien zur Griech. Alphab,^ p. 22 ff. For Phrynon, the general, see above, 
p. 50, note I. ^ On the naucraries, see above, p. 31, note i. 



56 Jolin Henry Wright. ■ 

this supposition. We have good evidence that Solon himself engaged 
in trade, and the sagacity of his economical and financial reforms 
reveals a man practically acquainted with the intricacies and needs 
of business intercourse. The evident friendliness of Solon for the 
Alcmeonidae might possibly be explained on the supposition of a unity 
of interests with them in matters of trade. 

The social distress in Attica which prevailed for a number of years 
before Solon's appearance upon the scene was due to a variety of 
causes. The long war with Megara not only had exhausted the 
resources of the people, but had forced the Athenians to get such 
imported corn as was needed as best they could, probably only at 
a great cost. The change from primitive traffic by barter to that of 
buying and selling with coined money would weigh very heavily upon 
the peasant, and even upon the landed proprietor who had no capital 
but his lands ; increase and uncertainty in prices would naturally 
ensue, and a financial crisis would be precipitated. A third cause of 
discontent was found in the unjust manner with which the ruling fami- 
Hes, in whose hands lay the judicial functions, executed judgment, 
favoring their friends and oppressing the helpless. The only persons 
who did not suffer in this order of things were the capitaUsts, who, in 
fact, throve in it. In some cases the capitalists were landed proprietors, 
but many of them must have got their money by trade. A land- 
owner with money had the peasant at his mercy, and the result was 
not only that the country was dotted with slabs which served as rec- 
ords of mortgages, but that the holdings of land by single individuals 
vastly and unduly increased. Nay, more : so high was the rate of 
interest which it was possible to exact from starving debtors, that 
many of the unfortunates found it impossible to pay the principal and 
were thus sold into slavery, themselves or their children, in satisfac- 
tion for their debts. 

Solon's reforms changed these conditions, and secured equity for 
every one. For our purposes it is unnecessary to dwell upon these re- 
forms. It is enough to say that the xpewv d-n-oKOTr-^, or absolute remis- 
sion of debts, commonly known as the Seisachthy, and in fact the whole 
revolution, must have been highly objectionable to the capitalists,^ who, 



In the words SAwj Se SitreAov;' vocrovvres ra irpbs eavrovs, ot fiev apx^v Kol 
irp6(pa.(nv tx^vrfs tt/v tuv xpe^v airoKOTr-fii' (crv/x$iPriK€i yap avroTs yijovevai tt^vt]- 



The Date of Cylon. 57 

however, when once a financial and business settlement had been 
reached, preferred to allow it to remain rather than to risk losses by 
further revolution.^ 

It is an interesting fact that of the post-Solonian parties, — the 
Parali, Pediaei, Diacrii,- — the Parali is the party of law-abiding citi- 
zens, which stands intermediate between the two extremes of oli- 
garchic and democratic agitators, and seeks the perpetuation of the 
status quo? That the Parali were rich is apparent from the language 
of Plutarch,* and their wealth would show that they were something 
more than fisher- folk. Everything supports the hypothesis that they 
were traders as well ; ^ and the wealth, foreign alliances and connexions 
of the Alcmeonidae, the champions and representatives of this party, 
can best be explained on the supposition that they, too, were engaged 
in trade in a large and liberal manner. 

It would probably require no little amount of time for a number 
of persons of identical business interests to transform their mercan- 
tile union into a political combination ; accordingly the party of the 
Parali must have been long in forming, and the wealth of the 
Alcmeonidae must have been well assured before Megacles assumed 
the leadership of the Parali. 

The chronology of the early history of the house will gain further 
definiteness if we note a few matters in connexion with the life and 



div), 01 5e T77 TToAiTeia SucxepoiVoyres Sia rh fieyd\r]v yeyopevai fj,eTa$o\7iv, (vioi de 
Bia T^v Trphs a\\T)\ovs (piXoviKiav (Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 13), we probably have 
the capitalists, the ancient conservatives, and the rising anti-Alcmeonidean fac- 
tions, reviving old family feuds. 

1 This may explain the readiness of the Parali (Megacles) to compromise. 

2 On the various forms of these names, see Landwehr, Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V. 

(1884), pp. 154 ff- 

^ Plut. Sol. 13 {o\ Udpa\oi ixiffov TLva koX f.iefxi'y/j.evov alpov/j.€vot TroAireios 
Tp6vov, K.r.X.; cf. 29) is of course only a paraphrase of Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 
13 (/.tia fiukv tSiv UapaXicev, S>v TrpoenTT-fiKsi MeyaKX^s 6 'A\K/j.ewvos, o'Liap iS6Kovi/ 
fMaAicrra diwKeip ■t))v ix4(tj\v -KoXireiav), itself drav^^n freely from Herod. I. 59. 

* Plut. Sol. 29, of the party of Peisistratus, ^v ois fiv 6 d-qriKhs ox^os Ka\ ^aAio-ra 
rols irKovffiois axdofxevois. Cf. also Polyaenus, I. 21. 3: MeyaK\T)s inrlp twv 
irXovaloiv reray/xevos, k.t.A. 

^ In Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 13 (elx'"' 5' '^Ka<rroi ras eTrwviifjiia^ anh rSiv rSnwv 
in oh iyewpyovv) , iyedpyovv is not to be pressed in its literal sense; still, the 
lands of the traders would doubtless be mainly near the shore. 



58 John Henry Wright. 

fortunes of this Megacles : viz. the probable date of his marriage 
with Agariste, daughter of the Sicyonian Cleisthenes, and of two or 
three of the episodes of his struggle with Peisistratus. 

The house of the Orthagoridae ruled, or, as Plutarch would put it, 
chastised,^ the Sicyonians for one hundred years," evidently a round 
number intended to include three generations. Myron, the son of 
the founder, won an Olympic victory in the four-horse chariot-race 
in 01. TyZ (b-C. 648),^ and his more illustrious grandson Cleisthenes won 
a Pythian victory in 01. 49. 3 (b.c. 582).'* The same Cleisthenes was 
by tradition one of the important participants in the First Sacred War.^ 
As the length of his reign was about thirty years,^ we may suppose 
him to have ruled from about 595 B.C. to 565 B.C. At some date 
within this period yet to be established, he gave his daughter Agariste 
in marriage to the young and wealthy Megacles, son of the Alcmeon 
whose acquaintance he had doubtless made in the operations before 
Crisa. The tale of this wedding as given by Herodotus has many 
fictitious elements in it, but the marriage itself is an undoubted 
historical fact.^ One of the rejected suitors, the Philai'd Hippocleides, 
was archon in 566 b.c (01. 53. 3) ^ ; the wedding can hardly have 
taken place much less than ten years before this date. If Megacles's 
daughter, who became the wife of Peisistratus^ about 550 B.C., was 



1 Plut. De Sera Num. Vind. 7 {A-Ior. 553 b). Cf. Herod. V. 67, "ASpTjo-roj' 
[i.'kv elf at ^iKvajviajp dacriAea, eKeivov S« Xevcrriipa (Pythia, of Cleisthenes). 

2 [Aristot] Pol. VIII. (V.) 12. (9), 21, p. 1315* 14. (pp. 587 ff. Susemihl). 
Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. p. 466, note 2. 

8 Paus. VI. 19. 2. 

1 Paus. X. 7. 6. 

6 Paus. II. 9. 6; X. 37. 6. 

6 Nicol. Damasc. 59 makes it thirty-one years. 

■? Herod. VI. 126-131. Q{.Tv.\\\Vq, De Agaristes Nitptiis (Konigsb. 1880); 
Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 466, 554; Topfter, Att. Gen. p. 279, and Petersen, Hist. 
Gent. Attic, pp. 21, 83. 

^ Athen. XIV. 628 c, d. Hesych. and Suid. s.v. oh (ppovris. Archon, 01. 53. 3 : 
cf. Euseb. II. 94 (Syncell. p. 454. 8) with Marcell. T/iue. 3 (i.e. Pherecydes and 
Hellanicus, on the authority of Didymus), 'IiriroKAeiSr/x e(p' ob iipxoi'Tos Flavo- 
drifata eTeOrj. The family of Hippocleides was already connected with another 
ruling house, the Bacchiadae of Corinth. Stemmata are given by Petersen, t.c. 
p. 16, and Topffer, /.<-. p. 320. 

^ Cf. Herod. I. 60 and Aristot. Respiib. Aih. c. 14; the latter, while following 
Herodotus closely, at times verbatim, gives fuller information upon the chrc- 



The Date of Cylon. 59 

a child of this union, which seems highly probable, we gain another 
terminus ante quern for the date of the wedding; viz. about B.C. 565. 
Herodotus also informs us that the wedding contests and the wed- 
ding took place in a year in which the Olympic games had been 
celebrated, where Cleisthenes had won a victory with the four-horse 
chariot. The dates that best satisfy all the conditions are b.c. 568, 
572 or 576.^ 

The struggles of Megacles with Peisistratus and their mutual com- 
promises furnish one or two additional chronological data of signifi- 
cance. Peisistratus established himself as tyrant for the first time, after 
a picturesque conflict with Megacles in the popular assembly," in the 

nology. Although there is some uncertainty as to the dates of Peisistratus and 
the Peisistratidae (cf. Busolt, G. G. I. 551, 552, and notes; Meiners, Diss. Hal. 
u, pp. 263 ff.; and Kenyon, note on Aristot. I.e., who discuss the subject fully), 
the following conclusions may safely be drawn. Peisistratus established himself as 
tyrant in the archonship of Corneas, B.C. 561 or 560 (Corneas, archon : Phanias, 
ap. Plut. Sol. 32, makes this date B.C. 560-59; Mar. Par. Ep. 40, either B.C. 561-60 
or 560-59, but Euseb. II. 94, Arm. Vers., 561-60). He was twice afterward 
deposed. Herodotus says that he was first ejected, ynTh. Se oh woWhv xP'^t'O" • • • 
TvpavuiSa . . . oviro} Kapra ippi^caixevriv. Aristotle makes this period five years 
(eKT<f> erec /nera tt]v TTpdirriv KardcrTacrtv, i<p' 'Hyricrlov &pxovros), and then says 
erei de dudeKUTCf ^ero ravra a reconciliation was effected with Megacles, whose 
daughter Peisistratus takes in marriage. If we take ravTa as referring to B.C. 556 
or 555, the subsequent dates of Peisistratus are thrown into hopeless confusion. 
If, however, we take ravra (wrongly written for ravrr\vl) as referring to the 
irpdrrjv KardcrraffLv above (but see p. 68, note 3), everything becomes consistent, 
and we are not forced to infer, with Kenyon, that Aristotle has made a blunder. On 
this supposition, the compromise with Megacles, and the marriage of his daughter, 
would have taken place about B.C. 550-49. Very soon, however, Peisistratus 
breaks with Megacles, and from this time dates the period of irreconcilable 
hostility between the Alcmeonidae and the house of Peisistratus, by Isocrates 
described roundly as forty years in length {rerrapaKovra S' err? t^s ardffews 
ytvojjLevris, Isocr. XVI. 25), i.e. from 550 B.C. to 510 B.C. (expulsion of Hippias). 

^ I am unable to see the bearing of Busolt's remark (6^. G. I. p. 466), which 
is true enough, that Cleisthenes the Athenian was born after 575 B.C., nor why 
this should show that the wedding could not have taken place as early as 576 B.C. 
I know of no evidence that shows that Cleisthenes was the first-born child, born 
soon after the marriage. Undoubtedly he was born some considerable time after 
575 B.C. : he would not seem to have been an old man when he carried through 
his reforms (about 508-7 B.C.). 

"^ This episode is not given by Herodotus nor by Aristotle, but by Polyaenus 
(I. 21. 3), very briefly, from an independent source. 



6o John Henry Wright. ■ 

archonship of Corneas (b.c. 561 or 560).^ It was, then, before this 
date that the parties of the ParaU, Diacrii, and Pediaei were in vigor- 
ous rivalry : these agitations succeeded by several years the two-year 
and two-month archonship of Damasias, which, according to Aristotle 
{Respub. Ath. c. 13), began at least ten years after the archonship 
of Solon ; Damasias having been expelled from office, a compromise 
was adopted by which a board of ten archons was chosen, five from 
the ewTrarptSai, three from the airotKot (aypoLKoi) , and two from the 
SrjixiovpyoL Less than a score of years before B.C. 561, then, the 
strife of classes had merged into that of local factions. Peisistratus 
does not, however, long remain in secure possession of his power ; 
by a combination, according to Herodotus (I. 60), of the parties of 
Megacles and Lycurgus, he is driven out. Subsequently, however, — 
we are not in a position to establish the dates with accuracy, but 
probably about 550 b.c, — he compromises with Megacles, and re- 
ceives his daughter in marriage as a token of cordial union. As 
Cylon had been son-in-law of a Megarian despot, so Peisistratus 
becomes the husband of the granddaughter of a Sicyonian ruler, 
though in all probability Cleisthenes was not living at this time. 
Aristotle {Respub. Ath. c. 17) points out that Peisistratus had secured 
foreign allies by his marriage with the Argive Timonassa ; by this 
alliance he may have hoped to win not alone the support of the 
powerful Megacles, but also the favor of the foreign Sicyonians. 

Of the subsequent falling-out of Megacles and Peisistratus, and of 
the later uncompromising struggles between the family of Megacles 
and that of Peisistratus, of the services of the Alcmeonidae to art 
and religion in rebuilding the Delphian temple, and to political 
progress in the achievements of Cleisthenes, this is not the place 
to speak. 

It remains to gather up the chronological data obtained in this 
examination of the evidence, and to draw the necessary inferences : — 

Megacles II., married in 568 B.C., or before, at the head of a 
powerful political party as early as 565 B.C., was born not later than 
595 B.C., and probably as early as 605 b.c. His father, Alcmeon, 
general in the Sacred War, was well on in years in 595 B.C., hardly 
less than forty or forty-five years of age. This would carry back the 



1 Cf. p. 58, note 9, above. 



The Date of Cylon. 6i 

date, at which Alcmeon's father (Megacles I.) was in the prime of 
his powers and eligible for election to the archonship, to some point 
of time before Draco, much nearer to 640 B.C. than to 610 b.c.^ 

VIL 

THEAGENES OF MEGARA. 

The age of Cylon, that of Alcmeon, and that of Megacles have 
thus furnished us some data for determining the time of Cylon's 
attempted usurpation. If we had it in our power, in a way equally 
independent, to establish the date of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara 
and father-in-law of Cylon, this fact would furnish additional consid- 
erations of much weight. Unfortunately the evidence on this point 
is both meagre and inadequate. Hitherto Theagenes has gained his 
date from Cylon, not Cylon from Theagenes, and there seems to be 
no direct evidence, except that which connects these two men, as to 
the date of the Megarian tyrant. Is there, however, nothing in the 
historical conditions, economic and political, of Megara that makes 
it most probable that Theagenes was in power as early as 640 B.C. ? 

In the industrial and commercial development of the states on and 
near the Saronic gulf, in the course of the seventh century B.C., a 
far greater activity prevailed at Epidaurus, Aegina, Corinth, Sicyon, 
and Megara than at Athens. Athens — and this is the political 
name of the people inhabiting the geographical district known as 
Attica^ — was, as we have noted, actively engaged during this time 
in bringing into relation with herself the newly acquired state and 
district of Eleusis ; she was rent by the opposing factions of great 



^ An argument, like the above, when it stands alone, has no convincing force; 
it suggests merely one of several possibilities, and it is only when all other seem- 
ing possibilities which are contradictory or inconsistent have been eliminated that 
one's possibility becomes a certainty. When, however, an argument of this sort 
reaches conclusions sustained by other and wholly independent courses of reason- 
ing, the possibihty that it urges becomes a probability, and the argument thus has 
value and weight. 

2 Horn, y 278 &Kpop 'Kd-qviiav (of Sunium) ; Thuc. II. 93, and passim. " Seit 
Kleisthenes ist t; ■n-6Ms rj 'AdTjvaicov ein ideeller begriff, gleich 6 Srifj.os 6 'A6rii'aiwv, 
und der bedeutungswechsel zwischen stadt und staat," Wilamowitz, P^iL Unters. 
I. p. III. 



62 • John Henry Wright. _ 

families ; the people were slowly increasing in numbers, and domestic 
industries — the manufacture of pottery and the culture of the olive 
for its oil — were beginning to flourish. Thus engaged, and endowed 
with a land in which agriculture was on the whole a remunerative occu- 
pation, the Athenians, as a people, did not have occasion to concern 
themselves in the far-reaching commercial movements whereby, 
throughout this century and also through the last fifty years of the 
preceding century, the Greek name and civilization were spread over 
the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In this activity 
Athens was far behind her sister states, and it was not until about 
the time of Solon that many of her citizens became interested in 
commercial enterprises. 

With Corinth and Sicyon, and with Megara in particular, the case had 
been different. The latter state, as early as the first half of the seventh 
century, had sent powerful colonies to the Thracian Bosporus and had 
there founded the great cities of Chalcedon and Byzantium ; still 
earlier she had sent colonies to Sicily.^ Now, such movements imply, at 
least in this period of Greek colonization, great inward agitation ; com- 
mercial activity is often the occasion as well as the result of domestic 
upheavals. The acquisition of wealth by industry and by trade — and 
the two necessarily go hand in hand — introduces into the social 
organism a new aristocracy, which ranges itself in opposition to the 
ancient aristocracy of birth, the wealth of which mainly lies in lands. 
The lines that separate classes thus grow fainter ; the masses of the 
common people, finding a source of abundant liveHhood in the social 
occupations of industry and trade, as against the lonelier occupation of 
agriculture, become conscious of their common interests and common 
relations, and from union in occupation easily acquire and gradually 
develop a sense of union in pohtical concerns. 

It thus happened, as an historical fact, that in this period of 
activity in colonization, the states that were most prominent were 
precisely the states that underwent the most radical political revo- 
lutions. The ancient conservative aristocracy, that in the eighth 
century B.C. had gradually and apparently without revolution taken 
the place of the rule of kings, now underwent rapid and signal 



1 Chalcedon in 675 B.C., and Byzantium in 659 B.C. See Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 
326, 327, for the authorities. 



The Date of Cylon. 63 

transformation ; the new aristocracy of wealth — and wealth, accord- 
ing to Aristotle, is the essential feature of oligarchy ^ — supplanted the 
older aristocracy of family. The people meantime became restive, 
and were ripe for a change. The political agitations that ensue sprung 
in part from the consciousness in the people of increased power, 
with a growing discontent at the existing state of affairs and a resent- 
ment at the oppression to which in the unequal contests of the times 
they were subject, and in part from the factional quarrels of the 
ruling oligarchic aristocrats, the families of which were no longer held 
by ancient ties. These agitations commonly issue in one of two 
political conditions. In the conflict between people and aristocrats, 
the aristocrats yield in part, and by way of compromise aio-vjuv^rat ^ 
are chosen as arbiters, whose main duty it is to make record of the 
ancient law which in the troublous times was wrested by its admin- 
istrators — the aristocratic rulers and judges — to the hurt of the 
people. Another and perhaps more frequent result is that some 
member of the leading families in power takes up the cause of the 
people, and sustained by the people rebels against the sway of his fel- 
low-oligarchs, and thereby establishes himself as sole ruler or tyrant. 
The period of the rule of the oligarchs, before it received modifica- 
tion by the activity of the aesymnetae or was supplanted by that of 
tyrants, was usually a brief period — at least in commercial states. 
The history of Corinth and of Sicyon in particular illustrate these 
propositions, and from the Politics of Aristotle one may gather addi- 
tional examples. 

What bearing have these considerations upon the date of Theage- 
nes? As the period of Corinth's greatest colonial activity was coin- 
cident with that of the rule of the Cypselidae ; as at Sicyon the 
Orthagoridae held sway throughout all this period of commercial 
and industrial activity, it is natural to suppose that similar changes 
and states were found under precisely similar conditions at Me- 
gara, — in other words, we must infer that the tyranny of Theagenes, 
and its successful establishment, are to be placed nearer 650 B.C. than 
621 B.C. 



1 Aristot. Pol. VI. (IV.) 4, 7, p. 1290* I; ib. VI. (IV.) 8, 4, p. 1294" 11 ; Rhet. 

I. 8, 5, p. isee* 5. 

2 Aristot. Pol. III. 14. (9), 5, p. 1285'' 31; ib. VI. (IV.) 10, 2, p. 1295" 14. 
Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 438, 439. 



64 John Henry Wright. 

At Sicyon certainly some time before 650 b.c. the Orthagoridae 
are well established ; for it was in 648 B.C. that Myron, son of 
the ruling tyrant, won an Olympic victory,^ — a victory which may 
have spurred the ambition of the youthful Cylon. At Corinth before 
650 B.c.^ Cypselus was in the full possession of power ; and a date 
certainly not more than ten years later must be ascribed to Procles,'' 
the cruel despot of Epidaurus. As early as 640 B.C., then, Theage- 
nes would have had at any rate precedents enough for making him- 
self master of Megara. 

Certain features in the subsequent history of Megara are somewhat 
more intelligible if we ascribe to Theagenes an early date rather than 
a late one. At a date considerably preceding the archonship of 
Solon, Megara had begun her efforts to subjugate Athens. The first 
step, an insidious one, may have been Cylon's attempt, at a time 
when Athens and Megara would seem to have been on good terms ; 
this was followed, as a second step, by a long war for the possession 
of Salamis ; Megara in this war was successful, gained the island and 
colonized it, — only at a considerably later period being obliged to give 
it up. Commercial rivalry is not, at this time, a sufficient ground 
to explain this contest over Salamis, at least in its earlier stages, 



1 After his victory he erected at Olympia the treasury of the Sicyonians (Paus. 
VI. 19. I, 2), in which were two Qa.\a,jj.oL. The recent excavations at Olympia 
have discovered the drjcravphs 'SiiKvoviaiv, not, however, in its original form; the 
inscriptions (Roehl, I.G.A. pp. 171, 172, No. 27 b, c) are not earlier than the end 
of the sixth century B.C. Cf. Botticher, Olympia, pp. 215 ff.; Busolt, G. G. I. 
p. 467, 468, note 3. 

2 According to Ephorus and Apollodorus (inferred from Diod. Sic. VII. 
Frag. 9), Cypselus began his reign 657 B.C. Busolt, G. G. I. pp. t,-},},, 447. 

3 Procles married, for pohtical reasons, the daughter of Aristocrates of Orcho- 
menus, who was slain about 640 B.C., of course before her father's death; their 
daughter Lyside became the wife of Periander of Corinth, and was thereafter 
named Melissa. Periander came into power about B.C. 625 : he was tyrant for 
forty years. As the sons and daughters of his union with Melissa were grown up, 
and also, on the other hand, as Melissa died in pregnancy at the time when Perian- 
der fell out with his aged father-in-law and subjugated Epidaurus to Corinth, we can- 
not place the conquest of Epidaurus much before or much after B.C. 600 (Periander 
was nearly seventy in 600 B.C., since he died in 5S5, eighty years of age: Diog. 
Laert. I. 7. 95, 98, but see Diels, Rhein. Mus. 31 [1876], pp. 19, 20). Procles, 
then, would seem to have made himself tyrant of Epidaurus before 640 B.C. Cf. 
Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterthums, VI. ^ pp. 51, 52. 



The Date of Cyloii. 65 

Athens as yet not having distinctly become a commercial state. The 
high-handed proceedings of the Megarians are such, one may venture 
to believe, as would be undertaken by a state ruled by an ambitious 
man, and not by a people engaged in trade and rapidly growing rich, 
enjoying a peaceful aristocratic regime. In the later stages of this 
long struggle with Megara, initiated on personal grounds, the sense 
of commercial rivalry added a spur to the intensity with which the 
contest was carried on. As we have already remarked, the attempt 
of Athens to gain a foothold in the Hellespont was in part intended as 
a menace to Megara. It was also doubtless a feeling of rivalry with 
Megara as a formidable competitor that brought Athens and Cor- 
inth into close commercial union at this early date.^ If the attempt 
of Cylon had proved successful, Athens would have become a subject 
state of Dorian Megara, and the subsequent history of Hellenic civil- 
ization would have been vastly different from what it actually became. 
Athens, however, was not now ripe for a tyrant ; the people had not 
yet gained that consciousness of their own power, combined with a 
feeling of helplessness before their masters, that would lead them to 
range themselves against their ancient rulers on the side of a young, 
half-foreign adventurer. 

Finally, the condition of things at Megara in the middle of the 
sixth century B.C., i.e. at the time of Theognis, who reflects it in 
his elegiacs, would presuppose a long period of social disintegration 
and disorder. Theagenes seems to have raised himself into power by 
championing the interests of the poor country folk as against certain 
wealthy landed proprietors. Aristotle ^ informs us that on behalf of 
the humbler folk he slew the herds of the rich that were grazing in the 
river-meadows, which were naturally the property of the poor but had 
been appropriated by the rich. There is, however, no evidence that 
Theagenes's power rested upon a general uprising of all the lower 
classes against the ruling aristocracy. His rule was beneficent, and to 
him were ascribed, doubtless correctly, certain great public works that 



^ The adoption, at this early period, by the Athenians, of the Euboeic standard, 
bound Athens more closely to Corinth-Chalcis, and aided in bringing about mer- 
cantile emancipation from Aegina and Megara. Cf. Busolt, G. G. I. pp. 460,461, 
and Griech. Staatsalt. (I. Mliller, Handb. IV.) p. 1 14. 

2 Aristot. Pol. VIII. (V.) 4 (5), 5, p, I305« 24; cf. also Rhet. I. 2. 7, 1357* ZL 



66 JoJin Henry IVrighi. . 

were the pride of Megara.^ Of the length of his reign we have no 
information ; it was followed by a mild regime in which power was 
exercised by the aristocrats/ and then came little by little the dread- 
ful social disorganization and demoralization that saddens the verses 
of Megara's patriot-poet. To Theognis^ the most painful feature 
of the new order of things is that it is the base-born rich that have 
supreme influence and power, and that society is turned completely 
upside down. It may safely be asserted that so many changes in the 
political system, and so complete a revolution in the very social 
order, could hardly have been wrought within the compass of a few 
decades. 

VIIL 

THE DATE OF EPIMENIDES. 

The only objections that can be offered to an early date for Cylon, 
not already incidentally considered, are based upon the alleged con- 
nexion of the Cretan Epimenides with the ceremonies that attended 
the purification of Athens from a pestilence visited upon the city, 
presumably because of the Cylonian sacrilege. According to certain 
late writers (among them probably Hermippus, apparently quoted by 
Plutarch in Sol. 12), the city was disturbed by superstitious fears and 
strange appearances ; the priests declared that the sacrifices intimated 
some villanies and pollutions not yet expiated. Hereupon Epimenides 
was sent for ; he not only purified the city by various lustrations, 
but by his new ordinances humanized the people and rendered ser- 
vice to religion and justice, thereby preparing the way for Solon.^ 
Now the date of the visit of Epimenides to Athens is by some 
authorities — whom many classical historians follow — given as 01. 46 
(596-2 B.c.).^ Hence, it has been inferred, the Cylonian attempt 



1 Paus. I. 40. I and 41. 2, of a fountain in Megara, with its extensive aqueduct. 

2 Plut. Qiiaest. Graec. 18 (yT/or. 265 D). 

3 Theognis, 53-60, 289-93, ^'^^- Theognis 01. 59. 4: Euseb. II. 98. 

* Further details about Epimenides's work are given in Diog. Laert. I. 10. 
IIO-II2. Plutarch ascribes to Epimenides well-known Solonian ordinances 
{e.g. the sumptuary regulations as to funerals, etc.). Cf. Niese {Zur Gesch. 
Solons, p. 13), who demonstrates the fabulous character of much that is ascribed 
to Epimenides. 

^ Diog. Laert. I. 10. no (01. 46); Euseb. (Jerome), II. 93 (Abrah. year 
1422= B.C. 595, 01. 46. 2). See Busolt, G. G. I. p. 509, for the literature before 



The Date of Cylon. 67 

must have preceded this date by only a short time, and should be 
placed at the nearest convenient Olympic year. 

Now, as will soon be shown, this whole story of the connexion of 
Epimenides with the affair of Cylon may be a fiction, and yet, even 
if the substantial truth of it be granted, the inference by no means 
follows that Cylon's attempted usurpation took place only a short 
time before the visit of Eipimenides to Athens. Plutarch iySol. 12) 
expressly asserts that the affair had for a long time been disturbing 
the state before remedial measures were resorted to, and his Ik ttoXXoG 
in its connexion is much more likely to connote forty years than four. 
Again, even those ancient writers who maintained that Epimenides 
visited Athens in 01. 46 were not unanimous in asserting that the 
cause of this visit, according to Epimenides himself,^ was the KtiXw- 
vetov ayos." Plutarch's language also is inconsistent with itself: all 



1885. Little weight is to be attached to this date, 01. 46; it is evidently not 
based on auaypa(pai, but is due to the conjectural combinations of the later chro- 
nographers. See p. 68, notes 2 and 3, below. 

^ One well-known apparent point of contact between the KvAwveiov &yos and 
Epimenides is that referred to in Cicero De Legg. 2. 11. 28, and Clem. Alex. Ad 
Gent. II. 26. It appears that near the precinct of the aeixval deal, i.e. between 
the western slope of the Acropolis and the Areopagus, but nearer the latter, was 
the KvAdovetof, presumably the spot where the sacrilege was committed (Polemon 
ap. Schol. Soph. O. C. 489, Codd. Kvdiii^tov). Probably here also were the two an- 
cient stones, known as the stones of Violence and of Pitilessness, whereupon, before 
the court of the Areopagus, accused and accuser used respectively to stand 
(Paus. I. 28. 5,"T,Spst»s Kal 'Avatdeias "KiOovs). In the later tradition these stones 
appear to be turned into altars : so Theophrastus (®e6<ppaffTos iv T(p rrepl yS/xcDf 
"TPpews Kal 'AuaiSslas Trapa to7s ' KB-qvaiois eTvai 0wij.ovs, Zenob. 4. 36)- Ister, 
however, writing after Theophrastus, and possibly quoting him by name, makes 
'AvaiSeia have a temple {'lep6v) at Athens (Suid. s.v. Qehs r} 'AvalSeia). It is 
probable that Ister, if not Theophrastus whom Cicero may have known at 
first hand (De Off. 2. 18), is the authority for De Legg. 2. 11. 28: "nam 
illud vitiosum Athenis, quod Cylonis scelere expiato Epimenide Crete suadente 
fecerunt Contumeliae fanum et Impudentiae [better, Implacabilitatis]." The 
earlier form of statement (Bcofiovs) reappears in Clem. Alex. i.e. It is highly 
probable that the part ascribed to Epimenides in this matter is merely an attempt 
to bring into connexion the KvKwveiov and the two stones, the story arising only 
when the ancient use of the stones had been long forgotten. These stones may 
originally have been merely venerable fetishes. 

^ Diog. Laert. I. 10. no: ot 5e rriv airiav etirt'iv \_sc. 'Erri/uei/iSTji'] rod \oi/j,ov 
rb Kv\cipei,ov ayos. 



68 John Henry Wright. ■ 

the commotion and disorder ceased with the departure of the Alc- 
meonidae, and yet afterward came Epimenides and allayed the 
disorders.^ 

Both of the arguments given above presuppose that the date of 
Epimenides's visit is correctly given in the tradition cited. Aristotle 
gives yet another tradition, which is possibly also at the bottom of 
some of Suidas's chronological data ; ^ according to this the visit of 
Epimenides must have taken place a dozen or a score of years 
before 01. 46.^ Good reasons, however, have been offered of late 



^ Plut. Sol. 13. Cf. Niese, Zur Gesch. Solons, p. 13, note 3. Thuc. (I. 126) 
appears to believe that the banishment of the Alcmeonidae was deemed a suffi- 
cient atonement for the a.'yos. 

2 Suidas, s.v. 'EirifieviBris, gives a farrago of information, in which, however, lurk 
some interesting points. We are told that Epimenides was born 01. 30 (i.e., 660- 
56 B.C.) and that he purified Athens of the Cylonian taint 01. 44 (m5' = 604-00). 
Now the ancient chronographers, in deahng with periods and persons not attested 
by recorded documents (avaypacpai, etc.) followed two principles, that of aKfj.T] and 
that of synchronism (Diels, Rhein. Mtis. 31 [1876], pp. 12-15). The a»cjU7) fell forty 
years after birth : the memorable deed of the persons whose dates were investi- 
gated marked the h.K[i.i]. Thus, in many such cases the birth-year given is exactly 
forty years before the characteristic, and in some cases datable, deed. With 
Epimenides we must take the reverse step : his birth is given B.C. 660-56; hence 
his great deed — doubtless the purification of Athens — fell about B.C. 620-16. 
But as the synchronistic principle was also at work with the chronographers, this 
date — according to our view, a correct one, if Epimenides had any share what- 
ever in the Cylonian business — is tampered with. Solon and Epimenides must be 
brought together; in reconciling the two traditions, Suidas's source, as it were, 
strikes the balance between 620 and 594, and fixes upon 604 as the date of 
Epimenides's visit. 

3 Aristotle (Rcspub. Ath. c. i) distinctly connects Epimenides with the affair 
of Cylon, but it would be doing violence to the obvious sense of his language to sup- 
pose that the visit of Epimenides was as late as Solon's archonship : between the 
mention of Epimenides and that of Solon the narrative describes the Draconian 
constitution, the ancient pre-Draconian state, and the political and economic 
agitations that preceded Solon's appearance upon the scene. — We must not, 
however, press yara. raCra, and infer that Epimenides's visit preceded Draco (c. I, 
ad init.) ; these words — in accordance with a usage of which other examples 
may be noted at cc. 14 (see above, p. 58, note 9), 19 ad init., 22 (p. 58, Hne 
2, Kenyon), 26 (p. 74, 1. 2), 28 (p. 78, 1. 7), 38 ad iiiii. (?) — seem to refer, over 
the intervening clause about Epimenides, to the important statement preceding, 
in this passage, the Cylonian affair. Thus, while Cylon must have preceded 
Draco, it does not necessarily hold true that Epimenides's purification did. At 



The Date of Cylon. 69 

for believing that tlie story of the visit of Epimenides to Athens 
at this time, if not the actual existence of the Cretan sage, is pure 
fiction. 

The earlier sources (Herodotus and Thucydides) have nothing 
whatever to say of Epimenides, either directly or by implication. 
The first appearance of the name of the Cretan in Greek literature 
is in Plato's Laws (I. 642 d), where it is said that he visited Athens 
ten years before the beginning of the Persian wars to carry out certain 
sacrifices ordered by the Delphic god ; he also prophesied that the 
Persian wars would not take place for ten years. According to the tra- 
dition in Diogenes Laertius (I. 10. no), Epimenides visited Athens 
in part to bring an end to a pestilence. Now an inscription said to 
belong to about 500 b.c. has corne to light which shows that a 
pestilence prevailed in Athens about this time.^ Combining all these 
data, Loschcke^ has drawn the inference that Epimenides was an 
historical personage who actually visited Athens and rendered her 
signal service a few years before the beginning of the Persian wars. 
This ingenious hypothesis has been widely adopted, and Busolt ^ has 
suggested how the story might have become apphed to the events 
of the former century : the pestilence of 500 B.C. might have been 
explained by the enemies of Cleisthenes as due to the KuAwvetov ayos. 
Diels,* however, on the strength of Aristotle's language, reverses 



the same time, it is highly improbable that Epimenides visited Athens very long 
after Draco. 

It appears, then, that one tradition, which Aristotle follows, connected Epi- 
menides with the purification of Athens for the Cylonian sacrilege not very many 
years after the crime. Another tradition brought Epimenides into relation with 
Solon. Solon's chief activity was in 01. 46; hence the later chronographers, to 
give expression to this synchronism, assign the visit of Epimenides to 01. 46. 
Yet another, evidently late, form of the legend combines the two traditions, and 
makes both Solon and Epimenides active in the measures adopted for the deliv- 
erance of the state from the Cylonian crime, the former in the trial, the two in 
co-operation in the ritual purifications (Plut. Sol. 12). 

^ C.I. A. I. 475 : [AoiJ/ioT BavovaTis eifil [(T/jj^uo Mvp/pYivris. This inscription 
seems, however, to belong to a much earlier date, being, perhaps, as old as the 
psephism (C./.^. IV. i a) relating to the cleruchs on Salamis, the oldest Attic 
decree extant (perhaps 570-60 B.C.). Roberts, Greek Epigr. p. 84. 

2 Loschcke, Die Enneakrunosepisode bci Fausanias, pp. 24 ff. 

3 Busolt, G. G. I. p. 510. 

* Diels, Ueber Epimenides von Kreta (^Sitzungsb. d. Berl. Akad. 1891, pp. 
387-403). 



70 Jo Jin Henry Wright. - 

Ix)schcke's proposition : the historic, actual Epimenides visited 
Athens not very long before Solon, to purify the city of the results 
of the Cylonian sacrilege, and, as the religious reformer of Athens, 
became associated, in the later legends, with Solon, her great political 
reformer. Later on, however, when the renewal of the Alcmeonidean 
ayos in Cleisthenes's time had revived the memory of the ancient 
seer, the name of Epimenides was attached to several Orphic forgeries 
and spurious oracles produced under and after the Peisistratidae, and 
this connexion gave rise to the tradition of his activity at Athens ten 
years before the Persian wars, which reappears in Plato : it also ex- 
plains the story of his extraordinarily long life. 

Whichever of these views ^ we may accept, — and that of Diels is 
extremely attractive, especially if we modify it to the extent of placing 
Epimenides's visit to Athens at about 615 B.C., — it is undeniably 
true that there are altogether too many mythical features about the 
stories of the Cretan sage — his preternaturally long life, his sleep 
of many years, his prophecies to the Athenians of the Persian wars 
and of the disasters connected with Munichia, to the Spartans of their 
defeat at Orchomenus, his alleged oracles,^ etc., etc., — too many con- 
tradictory stories about his work and date,^ to make it necessary for 
us to give much, if any, weight to considerations based upon the time 
of his supposed visit to Athens.* 



^ Loschcke's hypothesis has recently been examined by Topffer (^Att, Geneal., 
1889, pp. 141-5), who gives reasons for maintaining, with Niese, that the figure 
of the Cretan Epimenides belongs wholly to the domain of myth. 

2 Diog. Laert. I. 10. 109-115; Plut. Sol. 12; Paus. II. 21. 3. For some of 
these stories Theopompus may have been the source. Is not the reference to 
Munichia {ih6vra. "yovv rryr '^owix^a.v irap 'ABrjvaioLS ayvoelv (pdvai avTovs bacov 
KaKoov alriov ^arai tovto rh xcopfoj' avTo7s, Diog. Laert. /.c. II4) now made more 
intelligible by the statement, in Aristot. Respub. Ath. c. 19, of the circumstance 
not elsewhere mentioned, that Hippias endeavored to fortify Munichia, and that 
while thus engaged he was thwarted by the Spartan Cleomenes, this being the 
first, but by no means the last, instance of Spartan interference with Athens? 

^ As Diels suggests, speaking of Aristotle's mention of Epimenides, " die chro- 
nologisch unbestimmte Art, wie sein [Epimenides] Auftreten an die Process 
gegen die Alkmeoniden angekniipft wird, zeigt dass ihm kein genaueres Datum 
zuverlassig iiberliefert war " {I.e. p. 392). 

* Two additional objections that might be urged are only apparent, (i) 
Boeckh's assertion {Find. II. 2, p. 304) that the Cylonian Megacles was archon 
in B.C. 599, because winner at Olympia 01. 47 is based upon an assumption 



The Date of Cylon. 71 

IX. 

RESULTS. 

If the conclusion be correct to which all these considerations 
bring us, — viz. that Cylon sought to make himself tyrant of Athens 
not later than 624 B.C. and perhaps as early as 636 B.C., — and if the 
various positions that we have taken in the course of our enquiry be 
well taken, it becomes important and interesting, finally, to note the 
place that the episode of Cylon will thus hold in the social and 
political changes of Athens in the last half of the seventh century B.C. 
and in the first half of the sixth century B.C. The case must have 
been somewhat as follows : 

In the family rivalries for pre-eminence in the conduct of the 
Athenian state that prevailed about 640 b.c. and onward, the ancient 
and aristocratic family of Cylon forms a powerful alliance with a foreign 
prince who had designs on Athens.^ Cylon, youthful and ambitious, 
misinterpreting the signs of the times, failing to see that the social 
conditions of his native city were not ripe for his enterprise, as those of 
Megara had been for that of his father-in-law, with the help of foreign 
troops^ and of hairbrained comrades seizes the acropolis in his attempt 
to make himself ruler of Athens. The people, still in the main true 
to the ancient regime,^ though pregnant with the spirit of revolution, 



which he himself gives up (see above, p. 51, note i). (2) The presence in 
current chronological hand-books of the name of Megacles as archon opposite 
the years B.C. 612, 599, or elsewhere. There is no evidence for the date of Meg- 
acles as archon except that based upon his connexion with the affair of Cylon, 
given above; in other words, it is the date that we adopt for Cylon that fixes the 
date for Megacles, not the reverse. 

1 Schomann suggests that the naucraries, then newly established, aroused the 
suspicions of Megara {jfahrh. f. Philol. iii [1875], P- 455)- 

2 As Sparta aided Hippias, more than a hundred years later (Herod. V. 91), 
and the Thirty, more than two hundred years later (Xen. Hellen. II. 3; Aristot. 
Respub. Ath. c. 34, ad fin!). 

2 May not the several stages of differentiation in the social body at Athens be 
briefly summed up as follows? (i) The ancient regime, the whole people liv- 
ing in contentment with members of the old leading yiv-t] as their rulers. (2) A 
gradual differentiation of the residents of the city from those of the country : oo-toj 
(including the rulers, for whom, though in some few cases actually resident in the 
country, the city was the political centre) as against airoiKoi,. (3) Sharp demarcation 



'J2 John Henry Wright. ■ 

hasten to subdue the adventurous youth ; they are aided, perhaps 
led, by the family of the Alcmeonidae, now happily represented on 
the board of chief magistrates, who find a peculiar satisfaction in 
humiliating the formidable family of Cylon. The insurrection is 
wholly suppressed, the people having taken a prominent part in the 
movement. This activity on the part of the people, which like an 
electric shock has united them in a deepened consciousness of 
common danger and of common interests, leads them as a next step, 
— also in view of the stress of certain economic conditions, which only 
by Solon's day became absolutely unendurable, — to demand conces- 
sions from the ruling classes, at least to the extent that the laws 
should be recorded ; for hitherto the laws have been written only in 
part and subject in their interpretation to the whims of rulers which 
are selected by members of the old families from their own numbers 
and unite in themselves executive and judicial functions. The con- 
cession is granted. In B.C. 624-0 Draco conducts the commission 
for the codification of the laws. As he appears to have been a duly 
elected magistrate, though probably not the chief archon, at least at 
the beginning, it was unnecessary to appoint him a special ofiicer 
(aesymnete), as was commonly done elsewhere in similar cases. 
Draco yields to the popular demand, and proposes a new constitu- 
tion, which, with all its novel and democratic features, has still 
somewhat of an aristocratic, if not plutocratic, stamp. For a time 
things go smoothly at home, though the little state has become 



between ruling 761/7; (euTrarpiSai?), artisan class — mainly in the city, — and peasant 
folk (euTTOTpiSat, Srjfxiovpyoi, &TroiKOL [aypot/cot or yew/^opot']). From the permanent 
nature of such a differentiation when once commercial and other conditions had 
brought it about, whereby it long remained a social if not a political division, later 
generations would ascribe to it great antiquity. Thus Plut. T/ies. 25, apparently 
quoting Aristotle, makes Theseus the founder of these class distinctions. (4) 
Local factions (Parali, Pediaei, Diacrii), in which the old lines of social demar- 
cation were largely, though by no means wholly, obliterated, and were crossed 
by new ones arising in part from local, in part from family, and in part from 
class, interests. (5) Finally, as society becomes more and more united, as its 
various members come into closer contact geographically, economicall)'^, politi- 
cally, it gradually falls asunder into its two grand divisions of the Few and the 
Many, the Well-to-do and the Populace. This principle of division is, of course, 
at work in the earUest stages, and lies at the bottom of them all, but it now 
becomes practically the only principle at work. 



The Date of Cylon. 73 

embroiled in a war with Megara for the possession of Salamis, which 
began doubtless immediately after Cylon's attempt and was but one 
step in the efforts of Theagenes to gain control of Athens ; this war 
continues long, and its bitterness is intensified by the growing feeling 
of commercial rivalry between the two states. Athens, finally, unsuc- 
cessful nearer home, attempts by her new fleet and with new com- 
mercial enterprise to check the foreign power of her nearest foe by 
establishing herself on the Hellespont ; Salamis, however, she is at 
last obliged to forego, and recovers the island only much later.^ In all 
these anti-Megarian movements it is not surprising that the Cylonian 
party should continue to be in the background, but in time something 
of a reaction sets in : the family and friends of the surviving but exiled 
members of Cylon's party, still powerful at home, bestir themselves. 
They rally to their side all the factions that are hostile to or jealous 
of the Alcmeonidae, who thus early have figured, though by no means 
wholly disinterestedly, as champions of the humbler classes. The 
Alcmeonidae and their supporters are not as yet strong enough to 
meet this reactionary movement ; in the conflict that ensues, the 
Alcmeonidae are sacrificed, and after a formal trial voluntarily go 
into exile. In exile they form powerful connexions both at home and 
abroad with Athenian traders and with foreign princes, and perhaps 
at Delphi with the far-seeing priesthood ; they engage in trade, laying 



1 Plutarch {Sol. 8-10, and 12) speaks of two losses of Salamis: one, when the 
island, with Nisaea the seaport of Megara, was surrendered to Megara, presumably 
long after the Cylonian affair, and afterward recovered by Solon (ourbx /C7jpy| ii\Bov, 
K.T.A.) ; the other, just after the Cylonian affair. Herodotus (I. 59) makes Peisistra- 
tus prominent in the reconquest of Nisaea, and Aristotle {^Respub. Ath. c. 14) 
follows him. Aristotle, however, denies {^Respub. Ath. c. 17) that Peisistratus 
could have been general (^(yTpa.Ty]yCiv) in the Megarian war, — probably because he 
was not old enough to hold that office; Aristotle does not here necessarily refer to a 
pre-Solonian struggle, as Ad. Bauer {I.e., p. 57, note) asserts. It seems probable, 
therefore, in view of these statements and of other serious chronological diffi- 
culties, that only one war for the recovery of Salamis took place, and this after 
Solon's legislation; in this the youthful Peisistratus won distinction. (See also 
Niese, Zur Gesch. Solons, pp. 21-24.) The ancient psephism referred to above 
(p. 69, note i), touching Athenian cleruchs on Salamis (not later than 570-60 
B.C.), would presuppose a conquest of the island, if not immediately, only a short 
time, before its enactment, when certain abuses that had lately arisen called for 
immediate correction. 



74 John Henry Wright. 

thus the foundations of their great wealth. The trial and banishment 
may have taken place as early as 615 B.C., and perhaps the Helles- 
pontine operations of Athens are undertaken at the instance of the 
alert exiles, who see in them not only a measure of great advantage 
to Athenian commerce, but also a party-stroke that will serve them 
a good turn at home against the friends of Cylonian faction. 
Life at Athens is not stagnant. The people, not only the lowest 
class, but the traders and the fisher-folk, the peasants, and the arti- 
sans, now, perhaps, for the first time so differentiated, gain in impor- 
tance and power. In the reforms of Solon, carried through mainly 
in the interest of the people, and particularly of the peasant class, we 
have an evidence that the people, though down-trodden and degraded 
through the operation of economic forces, have enough power to 
constrain the state to make ample provision for their needs. In the ■ 
meantime, evidently before the archonship of Solon, the aristocratic 
factions that have supported the cause of the Cylonians fall into the 
background, while the counter party is restored to favor. The Alcme- 
onidae return from exile ; and in due time their tried leader, rich, 
powerful, the friend of princes, the Alcmeonid Alcmeon, son of the 
bloodstained Megacles, gains so much of consideration in the eyes 
of the people and of their advocate Solon, that he becomes their 
leader and representative in the holy war for the honor of Delphi. 
In the controversies that soon follow, it is another Alcmeonid, a sec- 
ond Megacles, who, as the head of the Men of the Shore, champions 
the cause not only of his associates in business enterprises, but also 
of the great law-abiding middle class in its struggles for supremacy 
with the party of the ancient aristocracy, headed by Lycurgus, and 
with the proletariat, whom Peisistratus, himself also a member of 
an ancient family, for his own purposes was willing to lead. 

Thus viewed, the episode of Cylon ceases to be a detached inci- 
dent in Attic history : it now reveals itself, in its true light, as one of 
the most interesting and significant steps in the social and political 
development of pre-Solonian Athens. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Abbott, E., date for Cylon, 13. 

Agariste, date of marriage, 58 f. 

&ypoiKot (aTTOireoi), 7> 60, 72. 

kypoiwrai, ']. 

Agryle, 54. 

al<Tvfj.v7Jrai, 63. 

aicixT], 68. 

Alcmeon, not Alcmaeon, 42. 

Alcmeon, (a) life-archon, 2, 42; (^b^ 
general in Sacred War, 49; Alc- 
meon and Megacles confused by 
Scholiast, 51. 

Alcmeonidae, 6, 42 ff. ; Eupatrids ?, 
43; in Herodotus, 29; date of trial 
and exile, 47; gain wealth in trade, 
53 ff.; at Isthmian games, 50. 

oKiTiipioi, II. 

Alyattes, confused by Herodotus with 
Croesus, 52. 

Amasis and Solon, 52 f. 

Amnesty-law, Solon's, 11, 48. 

avaypacpal, 2, 68. 

Androtion, 21. 

&iroiKOt (^aypoiKoi), 7, 60, 72; vs. affro!, 

, ^^" 

dTroreoTTTj xp^^^i Solon's, 56. 

Apollodorus, 2, 10; sources of, 21; on 

Cypselus, 64. 
&pXovres = TrpuToj'eis, before Solon, 30 f. 
[apx'*''] ^O-ffiXevs, 2. 
Archons, choice of, under and after 

Solon, 4 ; archon's or archons' court, 

II f., 33; their oath, 41 f. 
Archontate, life, decennial, annual, — 

dates and development of, 2 ff. 
Aristaechmus, archon, 5, 35. 
Aristocracy in Greece, how transformed, 

62. 
Aristocrates, 64. 



Aristodemus, the Elean, chronographer, 
2, 27. 

Aristotle, studies in Attic history, 21 ; 
his noAiTeiai, 15. 

Respub. Atheii., authorship, 22 f. ; 
recognized as Aristotelian by Philo- 
chorus, 23; sources of, 21 ; and 
Plutarch's Sol., 25 ff.; mentions or 
parentage in, 35; story of Cylon 
in, 14; yuera to-vjo. in, 68. 

Artytamas, 50. 

dcTTOi vs. i.-KoiKoi, 71. 

Athena Polias, 11. 

Athens, a political name (= Attica), 
61 ; stages in differentiation of the 
social body at, 71 f.; study of early 
history in antiquity, 20 ; Athens and 
Corinth commercially united, 65. 

Atthides, 21 ff., 35. 

Attica, geographical subdivisions, 8; 
causes of social distress before 
Solon, 56; early trade and indus- 
try, 55; local factions post-Solc- 
nian, 8. 

Eacchiadae, 58. _ 

0a(n\€vs, of Athenian archons, 2; Ba- 

criXfis and wpxtravis, 2>^. 
Berlin papyrus (No. 163), I, 7. 
/3io/, fiioyp6.<poi, 16, 23. 
Boeckh, date for Cylon, 13. 
British Museum papyrus (No. 131), 

1.7- 
Busolt, date for Cylon, 13. 
Byzantium, 62. 

Chalcedon, 62. 

Chronographers, Greek, 2 ff., 67. 
Chronology, Greek, 21. 

75 



76 



General Index. 



Cicero, use of Theophrastus, 67. 

Cleidemus, 21. 

Cleisthenes, {a) of Sicyon, 50, 58; 
{b) of Athens, 45. 

Cleomenes, 70. 

Clinton, date for Cylon, 12. 

Colonization, Greek, causes and effects, 
62 ff. 

Corneas, archon, 10, 59. 

Corinth, colonies of, 62. 

Corsini, date for Cylon, 12. 

Croesus, 19, 50 ff. 

Curtius, E., date for Cylon, 13. 

Cylon, The Date of, 1-74: introduc- 
tory, I ff. ; the problem, 10 ff.; the 
story and sources of information, 
14 ff.; Megacles archon, 28 ff.; Cy- 
lon a young man, 37 ff.; the Alcme- 
onidae before Peisistratus, 42 ff. ; 
Theagenes of Megara, 61 ff. ; date 
of Epimenides, 66 ff. ; results, 71 ff. 

Cypselus, 6, 64. 

Damasias, 3 f., 19, 60. 

Date of Cylon, 1-74, 12 f. 

Deioces, 39. 

Delphi, 54, 73; Delphic inToij.i>r]fj.aTa, 
49. 

Demetrius Phalereus, 21 f. 

Democracy, Athenian, begins with 
Draco, 5. 

Demosthenes, 6. 

ST)iu.a.pxoi, 32. 

druxiovpyoL, 7, 60, 72. 

Diacria, 8, 54. 

dlavXos, Cylon victor in, 12, 16. 

Didymus, 15, 23, 32; and Philochorus, 
36. 

Dittography, 8, 17, 47. 

Draco, not archon, 4; date, 4; his re- 
forms, 72; and v6/xos apyias, 53. 

SvvaT6s, Thucydidean use of, 28. 

Duncker, date for Cylon, 12. 

Duruy, date for Cylon, 13. 

Eleusis, 9. 

TjMKta, in Herodotus, 37 f. 
fjKiKioiTai, 13; meaning in Herodotus, 
37- 



evaYeis, 1 1, 14, 17- 

i^opifffiSs, 17, 47. 

tlpaenetus, 31. 

Ephorus, 9, 15, 20, 64. 

Epidaurus, 64. 

Epimenides, 14, 17, 25, 47; date of 

visit to Athens, 66 ff. 
Epizelus, 35. 
Eratosthenes, 2, 21. 
iTaipri'iT], in Herodotus, 38. 
eraTpos, in Herodotus, 38. 
Euandridas, 27. 
evytveia, 8. 
(vyevels, 43, 44- 
Eumenides, 11, 18, 67. 
eviraTplBai, 60, 72; meanings of word, 

43; Aristotle's use of, 44; Ev-jrarpi- 

oai (y^yos), 43. 

yeiiifxSpot, 7, 72. 

iyiwpyovv, 57- 

Gilbert, G., date for Cylon, 13. 

Grote, date for Cylon, 13. 

VvXoov, KuAcDi', 6. 

Gylon, 6. 

Hellanicus, 20, 58. 

Hellanodicae, 27. 

Hellespont, 73. 

Heracleides (Lembos ?), 15; Exc. 
Pol., relation to Aristotle's Respub. 
Ath., 15 f. 

Hermippus, ^loypdcpos, 9, 16, 23. 

Herodotus, on early Attic history, 19; 
on Cylon, 14 ff.; on Solon, 19; on 
Alcmeonidae, 29; on Athenian ar- 
chons, 30; errors in synchronisms, 
52; corrected by Thucydides?, 20. 

Hertzberg, date for Cylon, 12. 

Hippias, (a) of Athens, 70 f; (3) of 
Elis, 21. 

Hippocleides, date of, 58. 

Hysiae, 8. 

Holm, date for Cylon, 12. 

Ister, 15; source for Plutarch, 27; 
source for Cicero, indirectly, 67. 

Julius Africanus, 2ff., 10, 17, 50; sources 
for his list of Olympic victors, 27. 



Gene ml Index. 



77 



fKofirifff, 13, 38 f. 
Kv\<i>vfiov, at Athens, 67. 

Landwehr, date for Cylon, 13. 

Leipsydrium, 43, 54. 

Leobates, 5. 

\idot,"X0pec<}s Kol 'Avaideias, 67. 

Lycomidae, 5 f. 

Lycurgus, leader of Pediaei, 18, 60. 

Lyside (Melissa), 64. 

Medontidae, 43. 

Megacles, (a) life-archon, 42; (^) 
Megacles I., 11, 16; archon, 28 
and 34 ff.; (c) Megacles II., 34; 
life and fortunes, 57 ff.; (d) Mega- 
cles III., ostracised, 29, 46. 

Meya/cA-ijs, IlepiKA'^j, 1 7. 

Megara, 64 ff., 73; trade of, 55. 

Melissa (Lyside), 64. 

Mesogaea, 8. 

fieTo. Tuvra, in Anstot. J?esJ>ud. A^ken.,68. 

Miltiades and Cimon, confused, 51. 

Munichia, 70. 

Myron, (a) of Sicyon, 58, 64; (3) of 
Phlya, 17, 47. 

Mytilene, 55. 

vavKpapiai, 31 > 55 ^• 
Niebuhr, date for Cylon, 13. 
Nisaea, 73. 
I'ofxos apyias, 53. 

Oligarchy, early Greek, 62. 
Olympian register, date, 2. 
Orestes, founder of yevos EvirarpiSat, 43. 
Orthagoridae, 58, 64. 

Paeania, 6. 

Paeonia, 54. 

Pagondas, 50. 

Papyrus, Berlin (No. 163), 1,7; British 

Museum (No. 131), i, 7. 
Paralia, 8; Parah, 46; wealthy, 57. 
Paralus, 55. 
Pausanias, 24 and passim ; relation to 

Polemon, 24, 35. 
Pausanias, King, 41. 
Pedion, 8. 
Peisistratus, 8, 45; age of, 73; Peisis- 

tratus and vofios apyias, 53; dates in 



his life, 59; Peisistratus and Mega- 
cles II., 59. 

TletffKTTpaTidai, 8. 

Periander, date of, 64. 

Pericles, 14, 46. 

Peripatetics, the historical-antiquarian 
studies of, 21. 

Peter, C, date for Cylon, 12. 

Petersen, W., date for Cylon, 13.' 

Pherecydes, 58. 

Philaidae, (a) yevos, 6, 9; (d) Stj^oj, 9. 

Philochorus, 21, 24, 35; and Didymus, 
36; source for Plut. Thes., 27; for 
Plat. Them. 10, 36. 

^iXOKkioVS TLvSs, 36. 

Phlegon, 27. 

Phlya, 5. 

Phrynon, 50. 

Pittacus, 4, 50. 

Plutarch, use of Aristotle's Respub. Ath., 
not at first-hand, 25 ff. ; Solon and 
Respub. Ath., 25 ff.; sources of So- 
lon, 23, 25; sources of Thesetis, 27; 
his Them., 27; at Them. 10, Philo- 
chorus drawn upon, 36; in Lysander, 
Theopompus drawn upon, 27; mis- 
understands Plato, 42. 

Pcihlmann, date for Cylon, 13. 

Polemon, the periegete, 24, 35. 

Procles, of Epidaurus, date of, 64. 

TrpoKpiToi (for archons), 4. 

irpvTavis, 31 f- 

irpvrdueLS = apxovns before Solon, 30 f. ; 
later use of irpuTciveis, 31 ; ■npvrdveis 
Toiv vavKpdpoov, II, 29. 

irpvTave'iov, government- office, 31; ew 
Tvpvravdov, court (archon's or ar- 
chons'), II, 30, 2,T,. 

npvTaveTa, court-fees, 30. 

Pythian aTecpayirris d7wi', date of found- 
ing, 49. 

Pythocleides, 12. 

Ross, L., date for Cylon, 12. 

Sacred War, date and length, 49 f. 

Salamis, 9, 64, 73. 

Satyrus, 16. 

Scaliger, date for Cylon, 13. 



78 



General Index. 



Schomann, date for Cylon, 12. 

(r«i(T(ix0«xa of Solon, 56. 

(TE/xfal dioX, 18, 67. 

Sicyon, 51; her colonies, 62. 

Sigeum, 9, 50, 52, 55. 

Sigean Inscription, 55. 

Solon, archontate, date of, 10; Solon 

and Epimenides, 66 f. ; reforms, 56;- 

amnesty-law, 11, 48; laws on trade, 

55; as merchant and traveller, 9; 

Herodotus on Solon, 19; Solon not 

named by Thucydides, 19. 
Sotion, 16. 
Sosicrates, 10. 

Stein, H., date for Cylon, 13. 
<rracnaJTai, in Herodotus, 39. 
ffTparriyoi, significance of election, 4; 

age of, 50. 
Suidas, s. 'ETri^uei/i'STjj, 68, and Index 

of Citatiojis. 



Symmachus, 18. 

Synchronisms, attempted by chrono- 
graphers, 52, 68. 

Theagenes of Megara, 10; date of, 

61 ff. 
Themistocles, 5, 27. 
Theognis, 65. 
Theophrastus, 15, 21. 
Theopompus, 20, 27, 70. 
diajxia, Oea/jLol, 20. 
OecT/xoOerai, 3, 20; = &pxov'''fS, 5- 
6e(rixo&tTr\(Tas (in Paus. ix 36. 8) = 0e- 

(Tfj.ohs edrjKff, 55- 
Thucydides, on early Attic history, 18; 

on Cylon, 14 a.nd passhn. 
Timaeus, 21. 
Timonassa, 60. 

Wachsmuth, W., date for Cylon, 12. 



INDEX OF CITATIONS. 



Aeschines, Cto. (loS), 49; (171), 6. 

Andocides, Myst. (78, 81, 82), 12; 
ps. Andocides, Contra Ale. (34), 
46. 

Aristophanes, j5'^. (445), n. 

Aristotle, Respub. Ath. (Kenyon), pas- 
sim 1-74; especially (i), 5, 15, 
25, 48, 68; (2), 8, 25; (3), 3, 
20, 30, 31; (4), 5, 31, 35, 50; 
(5), 8,25; (6), 25; (7), 25,26, 
41; (8), 4, II, 26, 31,44; (9). 
25, 26; (10), 25; (11), 9, 26; 
(12), 7, 25; (13), 3f., 5, 26, 
34. 57; (H)> 10, 26, 58, 68; 
(16), 26; (17), 25, 60, 73; 
(19), 43, 54; (20), 6, 38, 45; 
(22), 4,29,35,46,54,68; (23), 
35; (25), 27, 35; (26), 35, 68; 
(28), 35, 68; (29), 35; (34), 71. 
38, 68. 
Politics i 2. (1252^ 17), 7; iii 

H (9)- 5- (1285% 31), 63; vi 
(iv) 4. 7. (1290^, i), 63; ibid. 
10. 2. (i295«, H)> 63; viii (v) 
4(5)- 5- (1305". 18), 31; ibid. 
(1305^ 24), 65; ibid. 12 (9). 
21 (13156, 14), 58. 
Rhet. i 2. 7. (i357», 33), 65; ibid. 
8. 5. (1366", 5), 63. 
Athenaeus, xiv (628 c, 0)5, 8. 

Callisthenes («/. Athen. xiii 560 c), 49. 
Cicero, De Fin. v (4), 21; De Legg. 

ii II (28), 15, 67; id. iii 

6. (14), 21; De Off. ii (18), 

67. 
Clement of Alexandria, Ad Gentes, ii 

(26), 15, 67. 
Craterus, Frag (3), 5. 



Demosthenes, xviii (149), 49; xxi 
(144), 42 f.; LVii (66), 5. 

Diogenes Laertius, i 2 (55), 53; ibid. 
10 (no), 17, 25; ibid. 10 (109- 
115), 70; ibid. (22), 21; ii (7), 
21,51; V 5(75). 21; ix8 (54), 

35- 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ^wi'. i (8), 
36; ibid. (71 and 78), I; ii (8), 
7, 36, 44- 

Euripides, Ale. (920), 43; Stippl. (659), 

55- 
Eusebius, Chron. (Schone), I. (96), 
51; (185), 42; (188/), 2; (197, 
198), 10; II. (93), 66; (94), 59; 
(98), 66. 

Harpocration, s. ravKpapiKa, 32; s. irepi- 

aTOLxoi, 36. 
Heracleides, Fxe. Pol. (2), 17, 18; 

(8), 41. 

Hermippus {ap. Plut. Sol. 11), 49. 

YietoAoiMS, passim 1-74, especially 37, 
38; i(i9), 52; (30-33), 52; ii 
(177), 52; Y(62),54; (66), 38, 
45; (71), passim, especially 3, 
10, 14, 32; (94, 95), 52; vi 
(125), 50,52. 

Herondas, i (2 and 13), 7. 

Hesychius, s. aypoiccTai, 7. 

Homer, Odyss. 7 (278), 61. 

Inscriptions: C./.A.l. (61), 12; (122), 
54; (472), 6; (475), 69; II. 
(iii3),5; (I386),8;IV. (i«), 
69, 73; IV^ 373, n. 189 (p. 98), 
42. 
C /. C. (2955), 31. 

79 



8o 



Index of Citations. 



Inscriptions — continued. 

Roehl, /. G. A., pp. 171, 172 

(No. 27 b, c), 64. 
Marmor Parium, 3; (Ep. 32), 3; 
(Ep. 37), 49; (Ep. 38), 49; 
(Ep. 40), 59. 
Isocrates, xvi. (25), 43, 45, 54, 59. 

Joseph us, Adv. Apion. i (3. 16 and 

4. 21), 20. 
Julius Africanus, see General Index. 
Justin, ii 7 (Ephorus), 9. 

Lexicon Deni. Patm. (p. 1 52), 44. 
Lysias, xiv. (39), 46; Contra Nicid. 
(rt/. Diog. Laert. i 2.55), 53. 

Marcellinus, Time. (3), 58; (32), 36. 
Moeris, Lex. (p. 193), 44. 

Pausanias, passim 1-74; i (28. i), 16, 
40; (28. 5), 67 ; (40. 0,16; iii 
(17. 7-9), 41; iv (5. 10), 3; 
(13- 7). 3; vii (25. 3), 16,35; 
ix (36. 8), 5. 

Phanias {ap. Plut. Sol. 32), 59. 

Philochorus, Frag. (35), 8; see Gen- 
eral Index. 

Photius, s. vauicpapia, 31; Lex. App. 
(P- 665), 53. 

Pindar, Pyt/i. (7. 13 ff.), 29, 50. 

Plato, Legg. i 642 D, 69; Phaedr. 
(235 E), 41 f.; (240 C), 38; 
TJieact. (173 d), 38. 

Plutarch, Fab. (16), 44; Pericles (9), 
27; Popl. (18), 44; Solon (i), 
25.36; (8-10 and 12), 73; (11), 
49; (12), II, 17, 25, 35, 67 and 
passim 1-74; (13), 8, 25, 57; 
(14), 25, 28; (15), 25; (16), 
25; (17), 25, 53; (18), 25, 26; 
(19), ii, 25, 30,48; (20), 26; 



Plutarch — continued. 

(24), 55; (25), 26, 42; (27), 52; 

(29), 8, 26, 45, 57; (30), 26; 

(31), 26, 53; (32), 26; r-^tfv^. 

(10), 36; Theseus (25), 7, 44, 

72; yl/or. (265 d), 66; (553 b), 

58; (763 D, 805 D), 8. 
Polemon {a p. Schol. Soph. O. C. 489), 

67. 
Pollux, viii (42), 53; (86), 41; (ill), 

44. 
Polyaenus, i 21 (3), 57, 59. 

Scholiast on 

Aristophanes, Av. (873), 54; Eq. 
(84), 18; (445), II, 16, 24, 35, 
48; Nub. (Arg. II.), 51; (64), 
51; Pac. (874), 54. 

Lucian, Tim. (30), 36. 

Pindar, 01. (2. 87), 2; /'j/'/^. (7. 

i3ff.).Si- 
Plato, Axioch. (371 d), 44. 

Solon, i^r^^. (2), 9; (4. 22), 38; (4. 
34 and 36), 7; (5), 7; (13.44), 
9; (13. 43-46), 55; (32), 19- 

Sophocles, Elect. (160, 857), 43. 

Sosicrates {ap. Diog. Laert. ii 7. 95), 51. 

Suidas, s. 'ETTLjmevlSrjs, 68; s. r,\iKL(i>Tai, 
37; 5. Qehs 7) 'AuaiSeia, 67; j. 
Kv\wveiov iiyos, 1 7 f-j 35 > ^- ^^ 
(ppovrls, 58; •S'- TlfpiKXris, 17 f., 
35; ■^^ ^t^oxopos, 22; -f. XP"'^V 
eiKcvv, 41. 

Theophrastus («/. Zenob. 4. 36), 67. 
Thucydides, i (15), 49; {126), passim 

1-74, especially 3, 8, 10, 14, 32; 

(127), 18; (135), 18; ii (15), 

30; vi (54), 19. 
Tzetzes, C/iil. i (8), 51. 

Xenophon, Hellen. ii (3), 71. 



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